For a full biography of Berg, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_Berg

 

 

Lulu

excerpts from Philips LP sleevenotes

 

The opera

The opera Lulu occupies a very important position in Berg's small but consistently valuable output; indeed, it is, without much doubt, his greatest work. He himself constructed the libretto, in 1928-29, from the double drama Erdgeist and Die Biichse der Pandora by Frank Wedekind (1864-1918). It is not easy to form a confident estimate of the dramatic significance of the resulting work. The Viennese poet Karl Kraus saw Lulu as the woman "who destroys everyone because she is destroyed by everyone . . . Every type of man gathers round the mistress of love, to take from her what she has to offer." The atmosphere suggested by this remark is certainly characteristic of the drama, but it might perhaps be even more usefully expressed with one slight alteration: the essential tragedy of Lulu seems to lie in the fact that every type of man gathers round the mistress of love to take from her what she does not have to offer. Thus we are presented with a contrast between the woman who, as she protests in the crucial second-act song, has never tried to seem other than she is, and the men who are always trying to change her into what they want her to be. This is underlined by the different names by which she is known to her several lovers: Dr. Schon calls her Mignon, Dr. Goll (her husband when the opera begins) called her Nelly, and for the Painter she must be Eva. The drama may be obscure and sordid, but fortunately it is throughout illuminated and transfigured by the music, which contains many pages that are among the most lyrical, the loveliest, and even the noblest that Berg ever wrote. As for its formal organisation, that is best left to speak largely for itself, apart from the few general remarks on twelve-note technique that have already been made. In this, as in his other opera, Wozzeck, Berg makes use of traditional musical forms, such as the sonata movement and the rondo, for the deployment of his material (with the difference that, in Lulu, each of the main characters is represented by a different form, so that the forms contri-butealsotothedramaticand psychological characterisation). However, again as in Wozzeck, the composer would have wanted his audience not to be aware of the formal organisation, but to concentrate on "the idea," of the opera. The forms used will no doubt become clear to each listener with repeated hearings; but it is from the angle of what it expresses — Lulu's fate and its significance — that the opera should be approached.

Berg did not live to complete the third act of Lulu. The portions of it that he did finish are included in this recording. The first two acts and the finale of the third were first performed in the Municipal Theatre at Zurich under Robert Denzler on June 2, 1937. Productions since then have included important ones in Venice in 1949 under Nino Sanzogno and in Hamburg in 1957 under Leopold Ludwig.

 

Synopsis

Lulu begins with a prologue for voice and orchestra setting the mood of the tragedy to follow. The subsequent action may be summarised as follows:

Act I Scene 1. A room in the Painter's studio. The Painter is painting a portrait of Lulu as Dr. Schon, Lulu's former protector, and his son Aiwa look on. On the departure of the two latter men, the Painter pursues Lulu and declares his love for her. They are interrupted by the arrival of Lulu's husband who guesses what has happened, has a heart attack, and dies. Lulu is unmoved, and remarks that she is now rich. The Painter is shocked, but to all his questions ("Can you tell the truth ?", "Do you believe in a Creator?", "Have you a soul?", "Have you loved even once?", and so on) her unvarying reply is "I don't know." She goes to change, and they leave together.

Act I Scene 2. A room in Lulu's home. Lulu has married the Painter, who knows nothing of her past relations with Dr. Schon. Lulu has an interview with Schigolch, a disreputable old man who exploits her and poses as her father. Dr. Schon, who has fallen in love with a young girl, asks Lulu to set him free from the hold she has on him. When she refuses, Schon reveals her sordid past to the Painter. The Painter, stripped of his illusions, commits suicide in another room.

Act I Scene 3. The dressing-room of a theatre. Schon has arranged to have Lulu dance the principal role in a pantomime. As she does so, she sees Schon and his fiancee in the audience, and faints. By threatening to go to Africa with a Prince who has proposed to her, Lulu forces Schon to write a letter of farewell to his fiancee.

Act II Scene 1. A room in Schon's home. Lulu and Schon are now married, but the house is full of people who are desperately in love with Lulu. These include the Countess Geschwitz, Rodrigo, a servant, and a schoolboy. Schon interrupts a love scene between his wife and Aiwa. Schon presses a revolver into Lulu's hand and urges her to commit suicide. Instead, Lulu shoots and kills Schon — the only man she has ever loved, as she herself says. The scene ends with Lulu's arrest.

Act II Scene 2. A year later in the same setting as the previous scene. The room, however, is much less well-kept than before, and has an unlived-in air. Freed from prison by the Countess Geschwitz's generous sacrifice, Lulu must flee the country. However, when she appears, ravaged by the cholera which formed part of the escape scheme, Rodrigo, who was to leave with her, is so shocked by her emaciated look that he rushes out in a rage, threatening to tell the police of her escape. Lulu persuades Aiwa to go with her instead, and they embrace. "Is this the same divan your father bled to death on ?", Lulu asks; but Aiwa tells her to be silent.

Act III. In the first scene, which was left incomplete by Berg and is not recorded, Lulu is in Paris. A whiteslave trafficker named Casti Piani, who knows of her past, tries to make her enter a brothel, threatening to expose her to the police if she refuses. She escapes to London. Here, in the second scene (the finale of which is represented in this recording by the orchestral music Berg wrote for it), her degradation is complete, and she is finally murdered by Jack the Ripper.