Lulu (1929–35; premiered incomplete 1937, complete 1979) is an opera that Austrian composer Alban Berg created from Frank Wedekind's Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904). Berg used twelve-tone technique amid rising cultural hostility and died having almost finished the opera. Its two acts and finale were staged until Friedrich Cerha finished act 3 from Berg's short score and sketches in 1979. Theodor W. Adorno called it "one of those works that reveals the extent of its quality the longer and more deeply one immerses oneself in it."
Lulu, an ambiguous , is framed by chiastic structures in the music drama. Her first husband dies upon finding her with her next husband, who dies by suicide upon learning she has been married off and sexually exploited since childhood. She marries a businessman she says rescued and loved her. As he tries to kill her, she kills him. Aided by her lesbian admirer Geschwitz, she escapes prison and flees to Paris with her lover Alwa, the businessman's son. A stock market crash ruins them, reducing her to street prostitution in London. Clients, her husbands' doubles, kill Alwa, her, and Geschwitz.
Background Source texts and treatment The opera is based on Wedekind's two Lulu plays: Erdgeist for the first half, and Die Büchse der Pandora for the second. Berg likely read Erdgeist by 1903. He saw writer–journalist Karl Kraus's production of Die Büchse der Pandora on 29 May 1905. In an introductory speech, which Berg admired, Kraus called Lulu "destroyer of all because everyone destroyed her". She is a 15-year-old prostitute, and Schigolch may be her father or sexual partner.
Berg repeatedly maps identitiesattributed to Winnecke, Olaf. [complete or better citation needed] and reverses roles in the chiastic music drama, casting her three doomed husbands as her three fateful clients. He remakes Alwa, Wedekind's dramatist, into a composer, his self-portrait (Lulu's apparent antithesis). He may have modeled Geschwitz on his lesbian sister Smaragda, Dr. Schön on his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, the Painter on Richard Gerstl, and Schigolch on his wife Helene's possible father Franz Joseph I of Austria. As in Wozzeck, the physician may represent society.
History of composition process Wozzeck success funded Lulu, on which Berg worked from 1929, including at his secluded Carinthian (house in the woods). He was tied to Schoenberg, who was Jewish, as antisemitism grew. Theaters dropped Wozzeck under pressure. Erich Kleiber's November 1932 production was its last in the Weimar Republic amid Adolf Hitler's rise to power. The Soviet Union banned it as "bourgeois".
In Nazi Germany, Berg's work was labeled "cultural Bolshevism" and "degenerate music". Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler wrote Berg in spring 1934 that Lulu Berlin debut was doomed, so Berg prepared the Lulu Suite for soprano and orchestra. Kleiber led the suite's Berlin State Opera premiere on November 30, four days before resigning and shortly before Nazi official Joseph Goebbels decried, on December 7, the "moral decay of the atonal composers". Die Musik issued a harsh review, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik chided positive press as ideologically confused.
In January 1935, Russian-born American violinist Louis Krasner offered Berg $1,500 for a concerto. Berg hesitated to leave Lulu but, facing ruin, began work by late March. Berg heard the suite's BBC broadcast from London's Queen's Hall on 20 March, led by Adrian Boult and produced by Edward Clark. After the April 22 death of his close friend Alma Mahler's daughter, Manon Gropius, he focused on the Violin Concerto in her memory, finishing by August at Lulu expense. On December 11, he attended the suite's Vienna premiere, shortly before his death on December 24.
Lulu third act was finished through its first 268 bars, its interlude (the suite's variations movement), and Geschwitz's epilogue (the suite's final movement). The remainder was largely in short score with much of the instrumentation indicated.
Composition
Like Wozzeck, Lulu is a tragedy of protagonists victimized by social forces. Dramatic overview Prologue: The Animal Tamer calls for the serpent, Lulu.
Act 1, scene 1: In a late-19th-century, vaguely Viennese studio, Lulu poses for her portrait. Dr. Schön and his son Alwa visit. They leave, the Painter ravishes her, and Dr. Goll, her physician husband, breaks the door open on them and drops dead, horrifying the Painter and making Lulu, who seems evasive, rich (transformation). Scene 2: Her portrait sells well after she marries the Painter, but as Schön rejects her, the Painter uncovers horrifying truths and dies by suicide, prompting Lulu to insist that Schön marry her. Scene 3: Lulu and Alwa discuss the Prince, who wants to marry her, but amid another confrontation with Schön, she persuades him to marry her and to break his engagement to a more respectable woman.
Act 2, scene 1: Geschwitz, shadowy clients, and Alwa all pay Lulu amorous visits. Schön confronts her jealously and demands her suicide, which he tries to stage by clasping a revolver into her hands and trying to force her shoot herself. She manages to shoot him dead instead and offers Alwa her fidelity in exchange for freedom before police arrive. Film interlude: She is arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned but escapes from an isolation ward. Scene 2: After plans to free her unfold and Geschwitz helps her contract cholera, Lulu returns disguised as Geschwitz, rejoices at her freedom, and rekindles her intimate relationship with Alwa, who idealizes her. They elope to Paris.
Act 3, scene 1: At Lulu's birthday party, blackmail, sexual exploitation, and financial ruin close in on her, leading her to manipulate Geschwitz and persuade Schigolch to kill one blackmailer. As the stock market crashes, she and Alwa narrowly escape police (transformation – variations). Scene 2: In London, Lulu survives by prostitution as perhaps before in her childhood, while Alwa faces his ruin. Seeking money, Schigolch finds a book of homilies in the coat of Lulu's first client, the Professor (the double of her first husband Dr. Goll), who discreetly pays Lulu in advance. Her second client, a self-proclaimed prince (the Negro, the Painter's double) refuses to pay, attacks Lulu, and bludgeons Alwa. Geschwitz, who is lovesick, contemplates suicide. Lulu is so captivated by or afraid of her third client, Jack the Ripper (Schön's double), that she accedes to his demand to waive payment. He murders Lulu and stabs the devoted Geschwitz, who dies singing to Lulu.
Scoring Roles +RoleVoice type or FachZürich Opera premiere,2-act version,2 June 1937Conductor: Robert DenzlerParis Opéra premiere,3-act version,24 February 1979Conductor: Pierre BoulezLulu, an adolescent former street childPower, Steph. 24 January 2013. The Wales Arts Review,"Alban Berg's Lulu Decadence, Decay and Myths of Freedom" Hoher SopranBahrija Nuri HadžićTeresa StratasCountess Martha GeschwitzDramatischer MezzosopranMaria BernhardYvonne MintonA theatrical dresser (Eine Theater-Garderobiere) (Act 1) A schoolboy (Ein Gymnasiast) (Act 2)Bob, A valet (Ein Groom) (Act 3)AltFrida KurzErika Feichtinger–Hanna SchwarzWalter Schwarz, an artist (Der Maler), Lulu's second husband (Act 1)A negro (Act 3)Lyrischer TenorPaul Feher–Robert TearDr. Ludwig Schön, (Chefredakteur), newspaper editor (Acts 1 & 2)Jack the Ripper (Act 3)HeldenbaritonAsger Stig–Franz MazuraAlwa, Dr. Schön's son, a composerJugendlicher HeldentenorPeter BaxevanosKenneth RiegelSchigolch, an old manHoher CharakterbassFritz HonischToni BlankenheimDoctor Goll (Der Medizinalrat – Medical officer), Lulu's first husbandspokenPeter PoschlToni BlankenheimAn animal tamer (Tierbändiger) (Prolog)Rodrigo, (Ein Athlet), an Athlete (Acts 2 & 3)Heldenbass mit Buffo-EinschlagAlbert EmmerichGerd NienstedtThe prince, a traveller in Africa /The manservant /The marquisTenor-BuffoOscar Mörwald(role of Marquis not sung in 1937)Helmut PampuchThe theatre managerBass-Buffo (tief)Walter FrankJules BastinThe professorA clownA stagehandsilentLe Nain RobertoA 15-year-old girlOpernsoubretteDaniele ChlostawaHer motherAltUrsula BoeseA woman artistMezzosopranAnna RingartThe BankerHoher BassJules BastinA journalistHoher BaritonClaude MéloniThe police commissionerspokenToni BlankenheimA manservantTiefer BaritonPierre-Yves Le MaigatPianist, stage manager, attendants of the prince, policemen, nurses, wardresses, dancers, party guests, servants, workers
Berg specified that a number of cast members should take more than one role. Thus, the singers of Lulu's three husbands return as her clients while a prostitute: one performer each appears as the Doctor and the Professor, as the Painter and the Negro, and as Dr. Schön and Jack the Ripper. Other specified combinations are one mezzo-soprano as the Dresser, the Schoolboy, and the Groom; one tenor as the Prince, the Manservant, and the Marquis; one bass as the Animal Tamer and the Athlete, and another bass as the Theatre Manager and the Banker. Another aspect of the cast list that differs from Wedekind's original is that all characters in the two plays receive a proper name. Berg removed these names except for the five leading roles of Lulu, Schön, Alwa, Geschwitz and Schigolch. Some of Wedekind's other names have sometimes been applied to Berg's characters; for example, the Athlete is often called "Rodrigo Quast", but this name is not in the score.
Instrumentation
Woodwinds 3 flutes (all doubling piccolos) 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn) 3 clarinets in B (1st and 2nd doubling E clarinets) bass clarinet in B alto saxophone in E 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon) Brass 4 horns in F 3 trumpets in C 3 trombones tuba
Percussion timpani triangle tambourine snare drum jazz drum bass drum cymbals switch 2 tam-tams (high and low) xylophone vibraphone Keyboard piano
Strings harp violins I violins II violas cellos double basses
The onstage jazz band in act 1, scene 3 (instrumentalists can be drawn from the pit players) consists of:
2 clarinets in B alto saxophone in E tenor saxophone in B 2 Jazz trumpets in C 2 Jazz trombones sousaphone
Jazz drum set (3 players) banjo piano 3 violins with jazz horns contrabass
In act 3, scene 2, Cerha's edition uses a small onstage ensemble that requires:
piccolo flute 3 clarinets in B bass clarinet in B contrabassoon
Lulu is arguably the first seminal work of western art music that used the vibraphone, an instrument that had previously been associated with jazz. However, it has been used in smaller works by major composers prior to Lulu, such as Maurice Ravel's orchestrations of Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and Ronsard à son âme [fr] (1933 and 1935 respectively), as well as Darius Milhaud's incidental music to L'annonce faite à Marie (1932).
Music Berg was obsessed with symmetry in his works and Lulu is no exception, the whole being perceived as a palindrome or mirror. Lulu's popularity in the first act is mirrored by the squalor she lives in during act 3, and this is emphasised by Lulu's husbands in act 1 being played by the same singers as her clients in act 3. The motifs associated with each are repeated. Berg also uses the Tristan chord to symbolize love and death.
The mirrorlike structure is further emphasised by the film interlude at act 2 at the midpoint. The events shown in the film are a miniature version of the mirror structure of the opera as a whole (Lulu enters prison and then leaves again) and the music accompanying the film is an exact palindrome – it reads the same forwards as backwards. The centre of this palindrome is indicated by an arpeggio played on the piano, first rising, then falling (shown here on the top staff).