Metropolitan Opera – Berg’s Lulu. November 5, 2015.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C120, $122.50).

Story.  Lulu has many lovers, including Dr. Schon, the Painter, the Physician, Schigolch (perhaps,) Alwa (Dr. Schon’s son,) the Prince, Countess Geschwitz, an Acrobat, and a Schoolboy.  She caused havoc in all her lovers’ lives, including the deaths of the Painter (who committed suicide after finding out about her past.)  Schon, fed up with Lulu’s wandering ways, demands Lulu shoot herself with a revolver, but is killed by Lulu instead. Lulu is arrested, tried, and put in prison, where she contracts but survives cholera.  The Countess helps her escape by switching places with her.  Misfortune in the form of collapsing railroad company stock and the threat of being exposed as an escape convict turn Lulu into a prostitute.  She is killed by Jack the Ripper during her first night as a prostitute.

Conductor – Lothar Koenigs.  Lulu – Marlis Petersen; Countess Geschwitz – Susan Graham; Alwa –Daniel Brenna; The Painter, the African Prince – Paul Groves; Dr. Schon, Jack the Ripper – Johan Reuter; The Animal Tamer, the Acrobat – Martin Winkler; Schigolch – Franz Grundheber; The Wardrobe Mistress, the Schoolboy, the Page – Elizabeth DeShong; The Prince, the Manservant, the Marquis – Alan Oke.

I have conquered quite a few concerts in a jetlagged state, indeed while in Hong Kong recently we attended two concerts and one opera.  Today I met my match.  We returned from Hong Kong Tuesday, and slept quite poorly the last two nights.  I didn’t fall asleep, but there were many moments of loss of concentration.  I did okay during the last Act, but attribute that more to my messed up circadian rhythm than the drama of that Act.  Now Act 3 was completed after Berg’s death by Friedrich Cerha, and it has Jack the Ripper in it; perhaps reasons for its being more compelling?

One piece of good news greeted us when we picked up the Playbills.  Inside were slips saying today’s performance would end at 10:50 pm instead of 11:15 pm.  I don’t know how to account for the 25 minutes, but indeed the two intermissions seemed shorter than usual.

Lulu for over forty years was a two-act opera.  Alan Berg died in 1935 and his widow would not allow any modifications to the work during her lifetime.  After her death, Friedrich Cerha finished the score in 1977 based on Berg’s notes.

Shortly after we got seated, a lady dressed formally came onto the open stage and sat at a grand piano.  It was obvious, even from our balcony seats, that the piano was “fake.”  Indeed during the prolog, she would pretend to play the piano while the actual pianist would pound away in the pit.  “Performer” (the title in the roster) Joanna Dudley would remain on stage the entire opera, and in addition to “playing” the piano, she would strike different poses next to, on top of, or inside the piano.  Listed as a soprano on the Met website, she did no singing at all.  Another performer, Andrea Fabi, had a lesser role as a butler.

The set reminds me of the one used in Shostakovich’s The Nose, which was done by the same designer. A lot of boards, newspaper clippings and video projections, and subtitles projected onto the stage are things that come to mind.  Although the basic set is the same, these additions made the backgrounds look quite different for the different scenes.  The intent was to support the drama on stage, but in my jetlagged state I couldn’t decide how effective it was.  In plays Lulu is often performed naked, here (for practical reasons and – no doubt – modesty) pieces of paper with breasts (and other body parts) drawn on them were pasted on Lulu’s dress to depict nudity.  There is also use of pastel colors for the costumes.  Depending on one’s perspective, one can call this trite or effective.  And what’s up with these huge gloves?

Berg was Schoenberg’s contemporary, and adopted the same twelve-tone scale.  With the help of subtitles, the singing sometimes sounded like dialog, and there were certainly no tunes one would walk away with humming.  Indeed Anne and I both wondered how the singers managed to remember the tunes, and how does one tell if someone is off pitch?

With all that caveat, the singing (or dialog) was generally good, adding to the drama.  It turns out I had heard Marlis Petersen before, as Ophelie in Hamlet.  There I had this to say about her singing: “her voice carried well, even during the softer passages.”  Even though the comment is not that specific, I won’t characterize today’s performance as such.  Interestingly, our seats for that opera were in the Dress Circle section (good thing I blog,) so it may well be the acoustics at the different seats.

I frankly got a bit loss with the many paramours of Lulu, but it wasn’t difficult to follow the story of a woman who was either manipulative or couldn’t find what she wanted eventually devolving to becoming a prostitute.  The Playbill contains quite a bit of this-and-that discussion on the philosophical and moral significance of the story.  But was Jack the Ripper really necessary?

Levine was the originally programmed conductor of this series, but his declining health forced him to adopt a less intense performance schedule, and he picked Tannhauser over Lulu.  In his place was Lothar Koenigs.  It probably wouldn’t have made any difference to me, but I had no complaints about how the music came together tonight.  I keep wondering why the Met uses so many international artists, do schools like Julliard, Curtis, and New England Conservatory not train enough qualified musicians?

The applause was quite warm.  Anne thought a gentleman sitting next to us was in tears.  At curtain call the production team members also came out, this being the premiere of a new production.

Curtain Call

In the Playbill there is an interview with the Director William Kentridge in which he had this to say about the score: “There’s no doubt that the fourth time you listen to it, it makes much more sense than the first time; and the eighth time you hear it, every note feels lyrical and appropriate and necessary.” Umm … I don’t even think they will have eight performances this season.  Considering my inability to concentrate, I heard it only half a time.

We had not seen Ellie and Reid for a while, so we stopped by Jersey City before heading into the city.  Was Reid happy to see us!

Here is the NewYork Times review.  The reviewer fills in many details that I didn’t get in my sleep-deprived state.