It was one of Berg’s final works he interrupted its composition to write the lush and neo-Romantic Violin Concerto, a piece that has endured across the decades as the most approachable work in his oeuvre. Theodor Adorno, the Frankfurt School philosopher who studied composition with Berg in the 1920s, gave the opera a backhanded compliment when he described it as “one of those works that reveals the extent of its quality the longer and more deeply one immerses oneself in it.” Lulu the opera is like the heroine herself-enigmatic, alluring, and troubled by the past. In a throwaway age of digitalized superheroes and corporate pop, it’s hard to imagine circumstances that better reveal the explosive powers still manifest in modern art.
Hypersonic 2 Team Air Win7 64bit Java here. This fall’s new production of Lulu at the New York Metropolitan Opera-its first reprisal of the work in its entirety since the 1980 premiere-gives us an extraordinary chance to hear and see this challenging work of midcentury modernism in all its terrifying glory, with the gifted soprano Marlis Petersen in the title role, and set designs by the South African artist William Kentridge, whose haunted drawings and films distinguish him as one of the most original artists of our time. Blood-soaked and beautiful, Alban Berg’s Lulu may rank among the greatest and most disturbing operas of the 20th century.
