Barbara Hannigan's Lulu

 

Barbara Hannigan returned to Brussels to repeat her famous Lulu performance.  She does a lot of en point dancing.  I reviewed it the first time around and found it complete fascinating.  I believe this performance made her career.

More Lulu

This is the amazing Barbara Hannigan on her experience with singing Lulu. Lulu may possibly be the most complex role in opera. She grows as ones familiarity with her grows.

Lulu in HD

👍🏻
Conductor:  Lothar Koenigs
PRODUCTION:  William Kentridge

Lulu:  Marlis Petersen (soprano)
Countess Geschwitz:  Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano)
Alwa, Dr. Schön’s Son, a composer:  Daniel Brenna (tenor)
The Painter / The African Prince:  Paul Groves (tenor)
Dr. Schön / Jack the Ripper:  Johan Reuter (baritone)
Schigolch:  Franz Grundheber (bass)

Today we were treated to Berg's Lulu live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera.  I have taken the liberty of correcting the Met cast list which said:  Alwa / Dr. Schön’s Son / A Composer Daniel Brenna.  This gives the impression that Daniel Brenna played three different characters when Alwa is Dr. Schön’s Son and a composer.

It is hard to know where to begin.  So let's try the beginning.  Most Lulu productions begin with animal cages, and it is only clear that Lulu is the snake.  In this production when the lion tamer announces the animals, we see each animal followed with a line drawing portrait of one of the men in the drama whom we assume is assigned to that animal.  I liked this.  Here is Lulu wrapping her snake-like arms around Dr. Schön.

The black and white drawings that fill the stage are intensely erotic even when the costumes are not. The drama exists on three levels:  the singing actors, the vivid, always moving projections mainly at the back of the stage, and two mime figures dressed mostly in black who had only a symbolic meaning.

Joanna Dudley (Photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

Deborah Voigt assured us that the production is far more interesting in house, but I couldn't help wondering if it wasn't clearer and less distracting as filmed for transmission.  We could focus on the actors and only have the ever changing pictures shown when we needed them.  The characters would kiss, but the most erotic intensity came from the drawings.

There is a level of professionalism in this cast that I have not seen before.  All were comfortable in their roles and at ease in the difficult music.  I have seen Lulu performed from the intensely sexual of Evelyn Lear at one extreme to the complete passivity of Ann Panagulias at the other.  Barbara Hannigan's mind always seems elsewhere.  Marlis Peterson is on the aggressive end of the spectrum.

Susan Graham was my favorite Geschwitz.

We never see the portrait of Lulu which the characters hold up and describe to us.  I have seen this opera often enough now to feel that I understand.  Certain women become the object of obsession of many men.  It's like being a movie star or perhaps an opera singer.  This work balances these many obsessions with the obsession of Lulu for Dr. Schön.  At the end she meets a man who looks just like him, in this production he dressed like him, and he murders her.

The result of my research on this opera has resulted in the conclusion that if you want high level professional performers and a fascinating production, you cannot beat this Lulu, but if you want to feel it as though it were life itself, you will need West Edge.

Read about Christine Schaefer's Lulu here;  read about Barbara Hannigan's Lulu here; read about West Edge Lulu here and here.
#ad

More about Lulu

People get the idea that opera is a serious medium. If you don't present serious ideas in meaningful productions, what is the excuse for it?

Lulu is an opera that is difficult to interpret. Lulu is woman, but what is woman? Must I turn it into a feminist manifesto? Or can I present it as itself and let the chips fall where they may?

Does Lulu merely stand at the center of her life while fantasizing about dancing, as in the Hannigan production?  Does she maintain her innocence in the midst of other people's expectations?  Does her sexuality exist only in other people's imaginations?

In the West Edge Lulu she adorns herself in seductive, sensual garments, sometimes consisting only of underwear, sometimes of nothing at all.  Her hair changes.  It's big, it's little, it's a blond fro or it hangs down.  It changes to red and then mousy brown.

I noticed in this production, which I had certainly not noticed before, that her constant costume and wig changes were assisted by a small woman who hovered in almost every scene.  I thought that this was just something that fit the production.  She needed help so they gave her some.  Then I went to Wikipedia and was browsing through the cast list where I saw...

A theatrical dresser, contralto

Oh.  Revise.  I didn't notice that she said anything.  The light bulb went on.  The seductive trappings are the explanation for everything.  Perhaps the dresser was originally intended for the scene concerning Lulu's theatrical career, but suddenly it pervaded most of the opera.

This is the real Lulu, the woman whose sexual encounters are not seeming coincidences, but are the result of erotic intention.  At one spot she masturbates while exclaiming her notes as though they were real sex sounds.

At the end she turns into a middle-aged drab.  A drab who somehow recalls her previous life enough to allow her to be a prostitute.

Lulu from West Edge

Dr. Schoen & Lulu

👍🏻
Music Director and Conductor: Jonathan Khuner
Stage Director: Elkhanah Pulitzer

Lulu: Emma McNairy (soprano)
Dr. Schoen/Jack the Ripper: Philip Skinner (baritone)
Alwa, Dr. Schön’s Son, a composer: Alex Boyer (tenor)
Countess Geschwitz: Buffy Baggott (mezzo-soprano)
Wardrobe Assistant/Schoolboy/Groom: Erin Neff
Schigolch: Bojan Knezovic (bass)
The Athlete: Zachary Altman
Painter/Journalist/African: Michael Jankosky (tenor)
Prince/Servant/Marquis: Joseph Meyers

Saturday night was the opening of Berg's Lulu from the West Edge Opera.  It was presented in the abandoned train station near the tracks in Oakland and was in German. 

It could be said that I have been in search of Lulu (see Barbara Hannigan review, see Christine Schaefer review).  Perhaps Lulu is woman, at least woman from a man's perspective.  Occasionally different productions play out the story a bit differently.  In Barbara Hannigan's Lulu I clearly thought that Dr. Schoen wanted Lulu to shoot him, but clearly in this version he wants her to shoot herself so he will not have to go to prison for her death.  She shoots him instead.  Maybe I should watch it again.

West Edge can be very proud of this Lulu.  They held back nothing.  The sexual intensity up to the time Lulu is arrested for murdering Dr. Schoen is spectacular and includes many sexual encounters. Emma McNairy is a brave and talented young woman.  Philip Skinner has a Bay Area following.

Lulu has so many costume changes that she is assigned a dresser who follows her about the stage. When I look in Wikipedia, I see the dresser listed as a character.  Perhaps the ones I've seen don't feature all these different looks.

It was extremely well done, but nevertheless with some problems.  The severely reduced orchestra seemed to work well in the parts of the score that are by Berg, but seemed fairly uninteresting in the last two scenes which were orchestrated entirely by Friedrich Cerha.  After her time in jail, Lulu seems to acquire maturity.

Lulu is growing on me.  I am gradually coming to the feeling that it is a 20th century masterpiece.  Forgive me if I am slow in arriving at this opinion.  This particular one is spectacular.

Don't miss this.

Who is Lulu?

 

👍🏻
Conductor: Paul Daniel
Production:  Krzysztof Warlikowski

Lulu: Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
Gräfin Geschwitz: Natascha Petrinsky (mezzo-soprano)
Dr. Schön & Jack The Ripper: Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
Alwa:  Charles Workman (tenor)

Two of my Lulus kind of ran the gamut:  the wildly voracious Evelyn Lear and the entirely passive Ann Panagulias.  Lulu is woman, a creature who fills man's imagination and becomes the sum of his desires.

In this version of Alban Berg's Lulu from Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, part II of the Barbara Hannigan film festival, a specific interpretation is offered.  Before the composed prologue is a spoken English language preface that relates the myth of Lilith, the first woman created by God who refused her position of subservience to man and was replaced by Eve.

So when we reach the prologue at the beginning of Lulu, and Lulu is introduced last in the menagerie as the snake, we recognize that she has been assigned the position of temptress in the Garden of Eden, she who leads Adam and Eve out of paradise.  At this point she is still a child, easily recognized by her long red hair.  She is already in childhood a dancer and can already dance en pointe.  The transition from Lilith to Lulu is very smooth.

In Act I she is already married to a rich medical doctor.  She begins her characterization clad only in her underwear and ballet shoes, dancing en pointe. A photographer photographs her with the animals in the menagerie.  For some unknown reason there is a wheelchair and crutches.  Her husband catches them together and dies of a heart attack.  So now she is rich.

In scene 2 she is married to the photographer, and their pictures are selling well.  Lulu still wears her ballet shoes.  Every so often she pulls down his pants.  "It has been so long since I danced."  She never seems to get tired dancing and singing on her toes.  Lest we think she is miraculous in some ways, her German is mediocre. 

Dr. Schön and the photographer argue over her name.  Mignon?  Nelly?  Eva?  Lulu has taken off her ballet shoes.  Her husband slits his throat after talking to Dr. Schön who should have kept his mouth shut.

Alwa arrives, then a ballet troupe of children who stare at the dead photographer on the floor.  Lulu puts her shoes back on, for Alwa has arranged for her to fulfill her greatest dream of becoming a ballerina.  A dresser helps her into her ballet costume.  She is dancing, all are loving it, until she sees Dr. Schön and his fiance, when she faints.  There's a prince who wants to take her to Africa.  I have seen all this 3 times before but have never been so engaged in the story.

The story is, apparently, that Dr. Schön met Lulu when she was trying to pick his pocket.  He fell for her but had a more "anstaendige Frau" that he was engaged to and kept marrying Lulu off to other men.  He doesn't want his fiance to know about her.  An "anstaendige Frau" does not exactly have an English equivalent.  A woman is "anstaendig" or she isn't.  Proper.  Decent.  Honorable.  Your gentleman son could marry her.  That sort of thing.  Obviously Lulu isn't.

A dancer dressed as Lulu comes out and does a soundless dying swan ballet, removing her top, and letting down her hair before falling dead on the floor. Stunning.  Lulu watches from the wings.  This version of Lulu is very strenuous, but you could not ask this dance, too.  What an amazing thing this is.

Act II

Act II begins in the same set.  Lulu's hair is now silver, and she is seen taking off her ballet shoes.  In the menagerie cages is someone who looks like her but with auburn hair.  Countess Geschwitz is there and invites Lulu to a party.  She hopes Lulu will come dressed as a man.  Lulu is now married to Dr. Schön who complains constantly.  She looks like the child in the prelude.  He has a gun and holds it to his head.

Dr. Schön changes Lulu into a red dress with gold shoes.  There follows a confusing scene where people come and go declaring that they wish they had married Lulu.  Alwa enters and has a long conversation with Lulu--they are brother and sister, lovers, we don't quite know what.  Dr. Schön, who is Alwa's father, waves his gun around.  In the middle of this scene Lulu says to Alwa apropos of nothing, "Ich habe deine Mutter vergiftet.  I poisoned your mother."  All are obsessed with Lulu, including Lulu herself.  She makes a long Lilith-like speech and shoots him.  Then she says, "The only man I ever loved" and worries that she will be thrown out of school.  Countess Geschwitz watches all this.  Alwa comes back in time to see the murder.

The child dancer from the prelude appears, and the interlude between scene 1 and scene 2 is her plus the Lulu in the menagerie dancing.

Lulu is in jail.

Who is Lulu?  Does the fact that all are fascinated by her define who she is?  He wanted her to kill him, and she did. Everything in this opera is about Lulu.  Her doppelganger is seen constantly inside the menagerie mimicking her actions.  Her child self dances.  A screen appears and shows films of her, perhaps created by the photographer from act I.

Countess Geschwitz has had cholera and is a blonde now.  She sits in the wheelchair from Act I.  She has successfully executed her plan to pass herself off as Lulu and get Lulu freed from prison.  Lulu limps in on the crutches, and they plan to get her out of the country.  As soon as the athlete is gone, she throws off her crutches and her hospital gown and celebrates her freedom.

And here for its first 40 years the opera ended.  It is not an entirely unsatisfactory ending. 

My own intermission:  I am enjoying very much watching this and writing about it.  I have never been particularly attracted to Wozzeck, a story about a man forced to eat nothing but beans.  Lulu is another matter.  The music, always uniquely Berg-like, moves smoothly from speech to Sprechstimme, to recitative, to pointillist aria.  Barbara Hannigan makes it all look easy.  It is a spectacular performance from any perspective, impossibly lyrical.  Lulu is merely living her life independent of the swirl of passion around her, caring about dancing, outfits and furniture, like hundreds of women you know. 

Act III

It is Lulu's 27th birthday and we are counting the lighting of her birthday candles.  Lulu is living under an assumed name in Paris.  Countess Geschwitz is there, Alwa is there, the narrator who has been with us from the beginning is there, the athlete is there, Schigolch is there, the child Lulu is there.  They discuss a stock they are all invested in.  Lulu herself appears to be stoned and passes out.  The little girl dance troupe is in the menagerie.  Lulu is a mess.

The orchestration here is quite fascinating.  We are in the part not orchestrated by Berg.

Lulu is chopping off her hair in preparation for fleeing.  The shares have collapsed.  The candles of the birthday cake are still burning, and the children blow them all out.  Lulu and Alwa get away.

Lulu has fled to London where she has married Alwa (4th husband).  She has short blonde hair and wears her dancing shoes and a tutu.  She tries to dance but is bad at it.  Child Lulu is still with her.

I can see that one might prefer a Lulu that ends with her getting out of prison.  While he was alive, Dr. Schön protected Lulu, but now that he is dead everyone else fails in this vital task.  She becomes a prostitute, and as her third trick she meets a man who looks like the beloved Dr. Schön.  He kills her.  The child Lulu stays with her to the end.

The repetitive visual elements--the child Lulu, the children's ballet troupe, both things that are not actually part of the story, and the scale covered narrator--overwhelm and obscure the actual characters.  We see perhaps more vividly than before the destruction Lulu.

One Lulu in 5 years is perhaps enough.
#ad

Lulu

Lulu:  Christine Schaefer (soprano)
Alwa, Dr. Schön’s Son, a composer:  David Kuebler (tenor)
Dr. Schön / Jack the Ripper:  Wolfgang Schone (baritone)


This is my third Lulu, the opera by Berg.

The first was in 1965 in two acts and starred Evelyn Lear. She was a voracious tiger who ate men for lunch, and the ovation for her performance was as nothing I have ever seen--not applause but a sustained roar. I was away in 1971 when Anja Silja played her.

The second in 1989, San Francisco's first since the completion of the three act score in 1979, starred Ann Panagulias, a dark young woman barely out of Merola. Ann was passive in the extreme, and the whole action just washed over her. Ann was cast for her looks, but projected no emotions at all. It is curious to notice that in this production Evelyn Lear played the Countess.

My third is this DVD starring Christine Schaefer from Glyndebourne. She is somewhere between these extremes.

There are women who attract others like a magnet. We have all known one of them at one time or another. Lulu is such a woman. What is the secret? Pheromones? Body language? Looks?

That is the question: is Lulu doing it on purpose, or is she merely the object of the desires of others? Is she arranging signals for others to respond to? Or is she just following the wishes of others? Is she a leader or merely a follower? Men of all social classes swarm around her. Dr. Schoen's son Alwa, well played here by David Kuebler, says she might be a cunning whore, and she says she wishes she were. Is it to her credit that she constantly reminds him that she poisoned his mother and shot his father, or is this part of her attraction?

Christine hasn't the strength of voice to project the voraciousness of Evelyn Lear. Hers is a sweet lyric soprano, and her Lulu is a sweet woman who enjoys being loved. She accepts all gifts as though they were her due, including the Countess' gift of her own health, and does not question the source. Dr. Schoen whom she kills is the only one she loves in return. This Lulu is a woman who is enjoying her outfits, which change frequently. Alwa calls her "little Lulu" and Christine is small enough to fit this. Her natural hair color darkens as the opera goes along. (Behind the scenes there will be a lot of frantic dying and drying.)

In a slut plot, one of the mainstays of opera, the slut must get what she deserves. Carmen is stabbed. Semele is burned alive. Violetta dies of consumption. Lulu is killed by Jack the Ripper.

There are basically four textures: orchestra alone (including the accompaniment for the film in act ii), unaccompanied speaking, melodrama (speech with orchestra--I don't think it can be considered Sprechstimme) and singing with orchestra. The artists move smoothly from one texture to another. Christine's singing is quite pretty, but I'm not sure I can say that for the others.

In this production the music is made to seem not difficult, a spectacular achievement. The music is merely there like background music for a movie (which some of the time it is.) The transition from talking to singing is transparent and natural. It is by far the best of my three. For this movie would we have chosen this music? Definitely.

The same man, Wolfgang Schone here, must sing both Dr. Schoen and Jack the Ripper because of the dialog at the end. He is only her third trick, but she wants him to spend the night with her because she likes him. He reminds her of the only man she ever loved. Jack kills the Countess, too, who gets to declare her love for Lulu as she dies. The Countess is beautifully played by Kathryn Harries.

This is the first time I have been swept up in the drama. It is played for reality rather than intensity. I think you could see a more melodramatic Lulu, a more evil Lulu, but hardly a more sympathetic one. It is pathetic to see that three of her lovers--Alwa, the Countess and Schigolch, the father that isn't a father--make it all the way with her to complete degradation at the end.

Lulu is the ultimate slut plot, and I am not the first to wish to see Anna Netrebko sing it. Her portrayal would be closer to Evelyn Lear's, I think. Don't get me wrong--Christine is pretty fabulous.
#ad