Lulu, Opera by A. Berg
Lulu, a femme fatale to die for, quite literally, is one of opera’s most startling dramatic creations. A woman who wreaks utter havoc, with her unburdened sexuality, destroying those who fall under her spell.
Alban Berg based Lulu on two Frank Wedekind plays, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, the second of which a twenty-year-old Berg saw in Vienna in 1905. The drama made a huge impression on the composer who sensed that its author had shown a new way forward for opera.
In the story, Lulu’s husband suffers a fatal heart attack after seeing her cavort with the artist painting her portrait. When a former lover, Dr Schön, tells the painter about Lulu’s past, what he hears is so awful that he kills himself. Schön now wants Lulu out of his life, but he cannot resist her. He leaves his fiancée only to discover that married life with Lulu, and her growing entourage, is not what he had hoped for. When he finds out that his own son, Alwa, desires her too, Schön hands Lulu a pistol. The bullet is intended for her, but she coldly turns the gun on Schön instead. After serving time in prison, and a financially disastrous sojourn in Paris, she escapes to London. Now destitute, however, her destructive actions finally catch up with her.
Lulu was first performed, by the Zurich Opera, on 2 June 1937, but it was incomplete. Berg died before he had scored the third act for orchestra. Given that the work was an exercise in the possibilities of musical symmetry, its unfinished state clearly undermined Berg’s intentions. The work was premiered in its full version on 24 February 1979, with additional music by Friedrich Cerha, at the Opéra Garnier in Paris.
It’s not surprising that the Wiener Staatsoper has brought Lulu back into its repertory this season. We recoil at the thought of ever meeting someone like Lulu, but cannot fail to be fascinated by her. Berg’s great achievement was to capture the essence, in music, of what a true encounter with opera’s most dangerous and compelling anti-heroine would feel like.