When a new production is mounted, it is important for the performers,
directors, designers etc.  to actually think back to the music itself
and come up with original ideas of their own: this is part of the creative
process.  This is especially important with Wozzeck, an opera far more
complex than is usually assumed.

The production at the Royal Opera breaks new ground with its unusually
perceptive insights.  Seldom has an interpretation been so completely
integrated: playing, singing, sets, acting, Sprechstimme, stage design
all work together towards a definite concept.  The direction here was
visionary: even the scenery on stage was 'performing' and part of the
statement.

The most stunning, central image of this entire production is the sight
of Wozzeck floating in a glass tank representing the pond he drowned in.
This is a concept of genius, a single image that summarises powerfully
the meaning of the whole opera in one powerful, simple statement.  Wozzeck
is now a clinical specimen, like the foetuses pickled in jars that the
Doctor keeps in the name of science.  The Doctor was using Wozzeck to
test his theories seeking immortality: yet it is Wozzeck who gets a
macabre immortality through death.  The glass tank has been on stage
from the start, Wozzeck pushes it around in gestures reminiscent of slave
labourers in gulags, its meaning unrevealed.  Wozzeck ends up floating
silently within, like a foetus in an eternal amniotic sac from which he
will never escape.  This one visual image will haunt me for a long, long
time, its power is almost hypnotic.  Matthias Goerne as Wozzeck sits
immersed in this glass tank motionless for the remaining ten minutes of
the production, like the foetuses in jars, inanimate and yet accusing
at the same time.  This is no trick effect with mirrors - he is breathing
through a tube, you can see the waters surface moving ever so slowly,
just like the natural flow in a real pond.  This is dangerous - imagine
the insurance premium, and the scandal if something should happen.  That
water is cold, clammy, and the position he has to hold is unnatural and
cruel.  In one single masterstroke, art and reality merge: just as Wozzeck
suffered humiliation in the name of science, Goerne suffers real danger
in the name of art.  Can any singer have given so much for the integrity
of an interpretation??  For this Wozzeck does not disappear into the
pond but stays visible to us all the time - reminding us that we cannot
ignore and dismiss him from our minds like everyone else did.  Silently,
as he floats he is accusing us and refusing, at last, to give in.

Truly: Wozzeck Taking the Plunge.  Berg, with his love of mystical
portents and prophecy will be beaming with delight at that line!  Stick
with this image and work back - this idea of backward, circular movement
also typically Bergian.  The opera starts deceptively meekly.  One of
Wozzecks part time jobs is shaving the Captain but having to listen to
the Captains abuse of him, while intoning 'Jawohl, Herr Captain' while
holding a cut throat razor - tiny but chilling detail.  'Slowly!  says
the Captain, 'you've another thirty years to live', proceeding to talk
about eternity, and how the passage of time gives him the creeps, then
berating Wozzeck for being stupid and having no morality, since he has
an illegitimate child.  Wozzecks self control at this point is impressive,
quietly he states that Jesus himself blessed children whatever their
origin, and says that morality is a question of money, which he as a
poor man does not have: if the poor get to heaven, they would be forced
to labour still.  The Captain dismisses Wozzeck, saying he's a good man
'aber er denkt zuviel'.

Wozzecks other, more sinister part time job is working for a pittance
with The Doctor, who subjects him to gruesome experiments.  The Doctor
represents Science and Rationality: he thinks having fixed ideas and
trotting off lists can control reality.  He goes beserk when Wozzeck
does what comes naturally.  There is still something in Wozzeck that
resists: singing beautifully of his vision in the fields, but ignored.
The laboratory is a huge, white tiled place, taking up nearly the whole
stage, set at a weird angle: Wozzeck the menial walks around sweeping,
pulling things out of boxes in the wall: the four glass cases also
miraculously being pulled open from time to time to reveal mysteries,
like the toadstools whose pattern Wozzeck thought had meaning.  This
portrayal of Wozzeck is no mere simpleton: he thinks, he tries to make
sense of his world even as it unravels.  He accepts humiliation and abuse
because he's trying to make money to keep his family.  The part is sung
with such simple dignity, which is far truer to the script and to Bergs
own conception of the work.  Berg said that there was much of himself
in Wozzeck - he too had an illegitimate child, and had no time for
bullying military doctors and crackpot pseudo scientists.  But the part
is so subtle: so strong must be our identification with Authority figures
that we assume that just because they say Wozzeck is mad, then they must
be right......  the clues are in the music that underpins their parts.
Graham Clark and Erik Halvarsson sing with the slightest tinge of
overconfident clarity, so we know where sympathies lie in this production.

A small corner of the set represents Maries hovel: cut off from the
overlit insanity of the lab, it is dark and messy.  This Marie she wears
a nice dress (eerily covered in red spots) and looks 'all woman'.: the
Drum Major is not attracted to her fro nothing.  Katarina Dalayman sings
this role with an animal sexuality which is important to the concept:
Marie, like Wozzeck, is a simple creature of nature, a warm person who
tries to make sense of the world by singing to her child and reading
from the Bible.  She's no slattern, again, like Wozzeck she has a moral
core which the Doctor and Captain don't have.  She also resists the Drum
Major, cockily sung by Kim Begley: another authority figure who abuses
others but one with a somewhat redeeming physicality.  Marie resists,
but like Wozzeck, cannot sustain it.  The connection between Wozzeck and
Marie is deep: they have been together six years and given up much for
their child, who is like an extension of themselves, watching all that
happens, silently observing, even the brutal scene between Marie and the
Drum Major.  In this production, their gestures and body language often
mirror each other.  Wozzeck has endured humiliation for Marie, for whom
he calls out.  Thus when he learns that she has been humiliated too, he
starts to crack.

Another brilliant piece of stage craft is the inspired layering of the
tavern and the hovel: the house is suddenly invaded by the villagers
dancing and playing music, climbing over the bed and furniture.  Berg
interspersed folk tunes with sharp discordant lines: the effect is
bizarre, unreal, sinister but also 'of the earth', of simple folk.  Their
costumes are another inspiration.  At first they seem just rustic, but
then when Wozzeck starts to lose it, you realise that the costumes are
like bandages, and the odd colour patterns resemble the stains on shrouds
as decay sets in......the dancers writhe and move resembling maggots and
worms pouring out of a coffin, there may be a certain pattern to their
movements, reflecting the intricate patterns of the music itself.  The
villagers sing folksongs and play accordions but with these costumes and
actions we too see what Wozzeck saw.

The same hovel also represents the barracks where the Drum Major beats
Wozzeck to a pulp.  Tellingly, in this production he spreadeagles Wozzeck
to the bed as he pounds him - Marie didn't get that far.  After the
attack, Wozzeck curls up in a foetal position.

The final scene between Wozzeck and Marie happens around the glass tank,
lovingly illuminated, like a crystal.  He sings with warmth and tenderness,
yet there is something unnatural he manages to convey - Marie is fixated
and scared at the same time.  Then suddenly he cuts her throat - the
'Ringel, Ringel Rosenkranz'.  Wozzeck returns to the tavern, then back
to the tank where he drowns.  The Doctor and Captain hear his last gurgles
but run away.  As Wozzecks body floats in the tank, from offstage we
hear the childrens chorus, singing sweetly but brutally 'Dein Mutter ist
tot' one says to the son, completely matter of fact.  The child walks
out onto the main part of the stage for the first time, his jerky movements
evoking Wozzecks crab like body language.  As he looks toward his father,
you realise that the cycle is about to start again.  Or does it?

Altogether a brilliant production, powerfully realised and quite deeply
subversive.  Listen to the broadcast on Saturday and keep the images in
your mind.

Anne Ozorio <[log in to unmask]>