After Babel

I was fortunate enough to get tickets for the last Royal Opera House production of Lulu. I went on Saturday evening, the 13th of June. London was in that strange in between when the combination of late sunsets, heat, sun, and sudden showers makes one think of the summer that is round the corner, but isn’t quite there yet. The Opera House terrace, which overlooks Covent Garden Market, was the perfect spot to get some fresh air during the intervals and down one’s drink while observing the busy comings and goings of the crowd in the square below.

Alban Berg (1885-1935) was writing Lulu at the time of his death and left it unfinished. Nevertheless, the work was almost complete and Berg’s short score showed very clear instructions as to how to transfer into full score the short-hand draft. The orchestration of most of the third Act was completed years later by F. Cerha, following Berg’s written instructions. Based on two controversial stage works by multi-faceted Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), Erdgeist and Die Büsche der Pandora, Lulu explores the rise and fall of its central female character and all others surrounding her, in the most brutal and compelling way.

We are already warned at the beginning that ‘this is no middle class entertainment, but an exposé of the bestial nature of all human beings’. Indeed, the story of this strange woman that manages to exert such power of attraction over all men and women in the plot, and at the same time only manage to slowly destroy herself and everyone around her is but of a brutal nature.

The way the plot -almost a hundred years old now- and the wording of the lines in the libretto remain so incredibly contemporary is almost a miracle. I cannot think of any other opera of the time that remains so new at a surface level as much as at a deeper one. The way the crisis of a whole society is represented in the story is tremendous. Seeing and listening to the characters of the opera, their concerns, the degradation of the Weimar Republic, the opportunism of investors, the stock-exchange crack, the way the characters immerse in and pursue pleasure and excess as a way of anesthetising their perception of the reality around them I perceive as terribly contemporary to us. Not only in the same way than Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is contemporary, but in a much more direct and poignant way.

Today we can find the same characters in the streets of the City of London, and putting the same lines in their mouths as Wedekind wrote a hundred years ago would seem the most natural thing. In a way, Europe is reliving the 1929 crack, with its prior demises, excesses, corruptions; with its turning a blind eye to the rising of extremisms, with a fearful society that turns on its back and trusts their destiny to the conservatives not so much to go forward, but to ensure nothing changes, that certain privileges are not lost; and nevertheless waiving its rights without too much thought at the first order that ‘sacrifices have to be made’ to remain secure.

All of these considerations gave Berg’s score an added impact on the night which one could not miss. The Royal Opera House production had the most excellent, expressive and seductive cast:

Agneta Eichenholz was a superb and rather attractive Lulu, her singing having a rather cool, but cutting quality that added magnetism to the character.

Jennifer Larmore was a sensational Countess with the most beautiful, expressive and charged singing of the night. Michael Volle and Gwynne Howell were also very good indeed in their portrayals of Schön and Schigolch, with some terrific singing, while Philip Langridge showed once more his savoir fair.

The Orchestra’s performance was of the high standards that Pappano has got us used to. Nervertheless, it lacked a certain brilliance and punch which we only got at certains points of the drama.

The stage design, which had taken a rather minimalist and contemporary look (much to my enjoyment, as it highlighted the correspondences between the 1930s and today) was rather impressive in its simplicity and cold beauty. Nevertheless, the directing was indeed poor, turning most of the action into abstract patterns of walking and very detached motions from the characters that did not manage to take all the advantage of the great libretto and of the prodigious music. Only the great acting skills of some of the most experienced singers could add the necessary ‘stage presence’ for the intensity of the action. In this aspect, Gwynne Howell’s star shone far brighter than anyone else’s.

Despite of these shortcomings in the direction, there were some truly memorable moments during the night, which sprung of the magnificent music that Berg wrote for them. The murder or Schön, during Act II was one of them. A more liberated directing, together with an orchestra which Pappano awoke for the first time to team up with the potent singing that was taking place in the stage turned that scene ending –as it should be- into a true climax. A similar moment of exceptional, intense beauty was reached in the following scene when Alwa and Lulu embrace ‘on the couch on which your father bled to death’.

But for me the high point of all the opera -and the only moment where pure love is displayed in the whole drama- was at the very end, when the lesbian Countess sings her unconditional and eternal love for Lulu, after she has been murdered. Berg wrote for this the most glorious, lush music, with a vocal line so poignant and sensuous that when it is rendered as it was on the night by Jennifer Larmore, one seems to understand and believe again that pure, eternal love is possible even in our present world of misery and decadence.

Filed under: Art, In English, Literature, Music by admin