Curtis Opera's "Wozzeck' (3rd review)

Alban Berg's opera, Wozzeck, gets a bad rap as being atonal, unmelodic and, therefore, inaccessible to most of the public. That's unfair.

Because of this assessment, the companies that gave four performances last season of Golijov's Spanish-language opera, Ainadamar, feared that Wozzeck couldn't attract as many people, so it was performed only three times this month. Dan Coren confirmed this opinion in his negative review, but I differ. (By the way, the three Wozzeck performances sold out.)

Berg said in 1929 that his music was "quite wrongly called atonality." The word scares people and is misleading because all music consists of tones, of course, and even the most "atonal" writing uses the same tones"“ that is, notes"“ that we all know.

Berg did, indeed, sometimes use tones that he didn't group in a traditional key and that didn't adhere to the accepted rules about what notes should follow which. Berg mixed this so-called atonality with normal tonality, using atonality to denote the hallucinations of the title character and the conflicted emotions of others. He wrote with traditional tonality in a hunting song, a military march, a waltz and a lullaby. So hummable music can indeed be found in Wozzeck, along with disembodied, discordant and dissonant sections.

Sadistic oppression, and music to match

In one sense of the word, Wozzeck isn't dissonant at all. We're familiar with cognitive dissonance— the discomfort caused when words don't match actuality. We'd be uncomfortable if Wozzeck's hallucinating central character, or his sadistic oppressors, had to sing harmonious, major-key arias. But they don't. Berg's music matches the story perfectly. Berg was an intellectual and analytical man, greatly concerned about technique, so I'm constantly amazed at how passionate his music is.

Wozzeck is a gripping music drama for voices and a large orchestra that involves our emotions. The opera isn't difficult to listen to and, for some of us, gives as much pleasure as Carmen. What is hard to take is the extent to which poor Wozzeck (the man, not the opera) is abused by the affluent and more powerful members of society.

Philadelphia leads the way, again

Wozzeck is based on the drama Woyzeck, left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death in 1837. This play was revived by EgoPo Productions in Philadelphia as recently as last September. Berg selected 15 of Büchner's scenes to form a structure of three acts with five scenes each, wrote his own libretto and composed the music. Erich Kleiber conducted the world premiere at the Berlin State Opera in 1925; Leopold Stokowski conducted the American premiere in Philadelphia (at the Metropolitan Opera House on North Broad Street) in 1931. Singers and orchestra musicians from the Curtis Institute took part in that production, and they did so again this month.

That 1931 premiere was a joint effort by Curtis, the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company and the Philadelphia Orchestra. This time the collaboration was between Curtis, the Kimmel Center and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, whose music director, Corrado Rovaris, conducted the three performances.

More relevant now than ever

The subject matter is the disparity between society's powerful and the laborers at the bottom of the heap. Today, when we see the gap in wealth between common people"“ wir arme Leut"“ and overpaid Wall Street executives, Wozzeck is more relevant than it's been in a long time. It's even more relevant than last September, when I wrote about the non-musical play: "You can easily read contemporary issues into the story of Woyzeck: economic inequality, abuses in the health care system and reliance on religion and guns."

Wozzeck, or Woyzeck, is abused by a variety of archetypal oppressors who are known simply as Captain, Doctor and Drum Major. Wozzeck cleans the boots of the weird captain and he submits to the experiments of the sadistic doctor in order to get a little money for his common-law wife, Marie, who begins an affair with the drum major. The three oppressors taunt Wozzeck to the point where he stabs Marie to death, then disposes of the knife in the deep water of a pond, and drowns.

A haunting protagonist

The performance was superb, starting with the spectacular Curtis Orchestra and especially its brass section. Conductor Rovaris, who last year gave the East Coast premiere of Ainadamar, is an eclectic musician whose talents go far beyond the normal Italian repertoire.

Curtis alumnus Shuler Hensley gave an excellent portrayal of Wozzeck, with bags under his eyes and a haunted expression as he seemed to carry a heavy burden on his stooped back. His voice exuded dark color and power.

Joshua Stewart was properly disturbing as the captain, and Evan Boyer was an outstanding doctor, with his excellent baritone voice and scary acting. Karen Jesse displayed a big and bright voice and excellent musicianship as Marie. Jason Collins sounded fine and had the requisite arrogance and brutality for the drum major.

Emma Griffin's stage direction put the players in contemporary military garb, reminding us of today's armies and the prevalence of post-traumatic stress. She made Wozzeck's killing of Marie even more shocking than usual when she directed him to slash her throat, causing a gush of blood and creating resonance with the image of the red circle of the moon.

Two small quibbles

I have only two objections to Griffin's interpretation. One is the presence of witnesses in almost every scene— sometimes a silent chorus of adults, at other times little children in spooky costumes. They added nothing to the drama.

The other is a changing of the script in the last act. Berg wrote music that specifically depicts Wozzeck wading into the deepening water of the pond to get rid of his murder weapon. You might expect his sinking to be described by descending musical figures as he goes deeper into the pool. Instead, we hear ascending scales that show us Wozzeck's perspective of the water rising around him as he drowns. This is a great moment that was watered down when Griffin had little kids drown Wozzeck in a bucket of water. A bad move, but it didn't destroy my overall thrill at seeing and hearing this production.



To read another review by Dan Coren, click here.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.
To read responses, click here.