Look after Lulu
“It’s fortunate that Lulu at Den Norske Opera was the last stop on the ‘Regietournee,’ because honestly anything after that would have amounted to an anticlimax. If there is a more brilliant director working in opera today than Stefan Herheim, well, maybe I shouldn’t see any of his work, because it might be too much for the human brain to absorb.” [Rough and Regie]
Thank you for this great article, Lulu in Oslo was one of the most amazing operatic experiences I have been lucky enough to get to, Stefan Herheim is an amazing director. I really hope that this production will be recorded and released on DVD, and someone really needs to pull their finger out and get the Herheim’s Parsifal from Bayreuth recorded for DVD before it is retired…
By the way the Rape of Lucretia in the second house in Oslo was pretty spectacular too…
Can a German-speaker please read the linked page (I don’t trust Google Translate) and let me/us know if this is confirmation that the Bayreuth Siemens webcast is going to show the Neuenfels Lohengrin this August, and the new-in-2011 Tannhaeuser in 2012???
http://www.bayreuth.de/tourismus_kultur_freizeit/tourismus/festspiele/festspiele_2011_1022.html
Please let this be true!!
So it seems, Poggia. Lohengrin is also confirmed on the Siemens site.
I was at the Wozzeck with Steber and Uhde when it was done at the Met--saw it twice that year and liked it. I like the opera even more now. It was done in English in those days--YUCH!
I did see a great production of Lulu here at LOC a few years ago. I didn’t think the soprano singing Lulu was that effective vocally and dramatically as other did. Can’t seem to remember her name--think she sang it at the Met as well??
I know that most find Wozzeck to be the greatest of the two works, but I find it a bit too depressing, although I love the score.
I prefer Lulu’s story to it and find it strange and fascinating. Maybe I am too influenced by the great movie, Pandora’s Box.
P.S. Kashie, before you get into the opera, Lulu, perhaps it would be fun for you to rent the 1929 film, Pandora’s Box. Louise Brooks is mesmerizing, unforgettable as Lulu.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018737/
I have the Glyndebourne DVD of Lulu with Christine Schaeffer, directed by Graham Vick. I think that Schaeffer exudes the right amount of sexiness and “innocence” for the role and sings it well.
I second the appreciation for the Glyndebourne DVD of Lulu. It’s a fine production (by no means traditionally representational, and quite thoughtful). The new Glyndebourne house is practically perfect: an ideal size, visually beautiful, comfortable, lovely surroundings, flawless acoustics.
I join Henry Holland in wondering what the justification is (not to mention how permission was obtained) for a “new realization.” Berg composed Lulu complete, first note to last, and it could have been published complete in piano-vocal score upon his death, had non-musical factors not intervened. Some of the orchestration (which does NOT mean creation of pitches or rhythms, only their coloring) of Act III needed to be supplied, and this Cerha has done in perfect style. “Realization,” however, suggests recomposition, and this leaves me apprehensive.