On 17 October 2002 Anne Ozorio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>The Abbado recording on DG is excellent and probably the one to get if
>.....  Booklet is very informative, too.

So informative in fact that the essays by Douglas Jarman were reprinted
in the ROH programme!  The German and Italian essays are different and
also informative.

>There are plenty of recordings of Berg Songs.

One I've recommended before contains Der Wein, the Seven Early Songs
(orchestral version) and the 3 Orchestral Pieces op. 6.  Abbado again
with Anne Sofie von Otter and the VPO, on DG.  The liner notes reward
the polyglot even more with 4 different essays in English, French, German
and Italian.

>Please do post on the Covent Garden production!  The Times and the
>Telegraph have posted their reviews and the latest, on Seen & Heard,
>is at http://www.musicweb.uk.net/SandH/2002/Aug02/wozzeck.html

(actually wozzeck.htm)
I don't really have much to add to the reviews on the Web and posted to
the list.  The performance had to compete in my memory with the one I
went to at the ROH in the 80's: one of the first professional performances
of opera I attended and a hard act to follow.  (I was a student and went
along with a friend who was reading German).  Also with the ENO Lulu of
a few months ago; I see now many similarities but even more the differences
between the two operas.

Where I was sitting (I took advantage of the huge discounts available
to get a stalls seat) the orchestra and singers were perfectly balanced,
so I didn't find myself listening to one at the expense of the other.
Despite all the praise for the singers in the reviews I've seen, the
contribution of the orchestra shouldn't be forgotten - they played with
both energy and beautiful tone.  My only real criticism was that sometimes
the action as depicted in the orchestra (which supports the events on
stage very closely), didn't quite synchronise with what was going on on
stage.  For example, when Wozzeck throws the knife into the pond you
'see' it fall to the bottom in a descending figure which runs through
the orchestra, depicting something which in most productions you can't
see on stage.  If I had to pick my top ten moments of orchestration this
would certainly be among them.  But here the knife was still in his hand
at that point.

The Seen and Heard review has some photographs of the production - the
imagery of medical cabinets and specimens used reminding me of some of
Damien Hirst's artworks.

With opera in particular I think you tend to have particular ideas about
characterisation and interpretation - I tend to think of Wozzeck as saner
at the start than he becomes later on, and also of the Captain and Doctor
as less manic than they were here, but I'm not sure the libretto requires
this & the interpetation of this production where Wozzeck is clearly
unhinged from the word go is a valid one.

I end with a paradox I can't resolve - this is one of those tragedies
based on the fact that no one cares about the protagonist, something
which goes right back to the events on which Buchner's play was based.
And yet by putting it on stage the playwright shows that he at least
does care, and enlists the concern of the audience too.  When it becomes
an opera, there is a composer involved too, whose 'commentary' on the
action can be heard in the orchestra.  Does this diminish the tragedy?

P.S.  Anyone thinking of going might consider:

a) The left hand side of the stage as you look at it is less brightly lit
and the action taking place there is done (for the most part) with smaller
gestures, so it's best to have a good view of it (if you can get a ticket
at all! The performance I was at appeared to be full).  Sitting on the left
side of row H of the stalls I was ideally placed.

b) if you have the Abbado recording, there won't be much to interest you in
the programme, unless you know nothing about Buchner (see my comment above).

Virginia Knight
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Personal homepage: http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~ggvhk/virginia.html