Saturday 11 November 2000

Wozzeck by Alban Berg, Opera Australia, Nov 11, 2000


Wozzeck by Alban Berg
Opera Australia at State Theatre
 November 11, 16, 22, 25, 28, 2000
Reviewer: Kate Herbert

The score of Alban Berg's 1925 opera, Wozzeck, crawls inside the tormented mind of the soldier, Wozzeck. (Jonathan Summers)

The score rises and falls like a roller-coaster with the chaos of Wozzek's escalating madness and culminates in his murdering his lover, Marie. (Margaret Medlyn)
Berg's libretto is based on Georg Buchner's powerful but incomplete play, Woyzek, from 1837 which in turn was based on a real murder in Leipzig in 1821.
His music is extraordinary, making this one of the 20th century masterpieces. Berg, a pupil of Shonberg, worked in an atonal 12 note form but also employs eclectic musical forms and borrows from or satirises other composers.
Buchner's play has 27 episodes. Berg uses 15 scenes in three acts. Adding to his moving music is the spare language, passionate outbursts by characters in recitative and song, as well as the ridicule and oppression of the poor, simple, deluded soldier.
The outcome is a moving representation of Wozzeck's moral, physical and mental breakdown leading to the murder of his lover.
Director, Barrie Kosky, creates a visual and emotional landscape. He places the orchestra on stage and the action on a steeply raked, uncluttered floor over the orchestra pit. 
Peter Corrigan's vivid, grotesque design comprises huge German Expressionist images rising like nightmares from hell. A plastic rubbish bin is the only prop.
The music swells under the exceptional conductorship of Gabor Otvos. The score carries us along in a flood of emotion culminating in the sustained natural B crescendo when Wozzeck's mind collapses.
Summers performance and voice as Wozzeck are commanding and his characterisation is impeccable and sophisticated. As Marie, Medlyn is impassioned and sympathetic and her role is beautifully sung.
Wozzeck's tormentors, the Doctor and Captain, are sung with relish and humour by Barry Mora and Richard Greager . The featured cast is delightful and includes Adrian McEniery, Horst Hoffmann, Tyrone Landau Jennifer Birmingham , Warwick Fyfe and Roger Howell .
Kosky's beer garden party looks like an insane Sydney Mardi Gras complete with leather outfits and half-naked revellers. The children's chorus appears decked in Christmas tinsel and the Idiot (Landau) is a street clown.
There are no flaws in this production. It is relentless both musically and emotionally. The tension soars with the music and the final image of Wozzeck's tiny son crawling inside a rubbish bin after the death of both his parents, is poignant.


By Kate Herbert

No comments:

Post a Comment