"Lulu, mein Engel..."

Twelvetone music of the Second Viennese School is not for the faint-hearted. So it was with some trepidation that I went to the Royal Opera’s new production of Alban Berg’s “Lulu” despite having done my homework - and taken a large dose of Handel at the Halle festival to brace me for the coming…ordeal! But I need not have worried: the story is thrilling and the music has its own hypnotic pull, so that the piece grips you after a few minutes and you are carried along like in a Hitchcock movie! The radically minimalist production by Christoph Loy was at once demanding and enlightening with its stress on the psychology of the characters, having no props, gadgets & gimmicks to divert the attention of the audience, but forcing singer-actors and spectators alike to concentrate on a stringent development of the fateful events of this gloomy drama.

The picture of human nature at its most seedy, sordid and depraved that Frank Wedekind painted in his "Monstertragödie", made up of the two plays “Erdgeist” and “Die Büchse der Pandora”, is not an edifying one, and it is difficult to identify or sympathize with any of the characters. It is a satirical street ballad in the vein of Hogarth’s set of engravings entitled “A Harlot’s Progress”. Even if Berg softened Wedekind’s satirical venom, this is not “La Traviata” where you can suffer with the consumptive heroine and cry your eyes out over her sad end. Of course, taken literally, “Traviata” means “gone astray”, and in this sense Lulu is a latter-day Traviata, minus all the sentimental trappings Dumas & Verdi had to clad the story in to make a prostitute as heroine palatable to mid-19th century audiences. 50 years later Wedekind still encountered the same difficulties, the censors allowing only private performances of his plays for a handpicked audience.

When Berg decided to set the plays to music the situation had become even worse. After 1933 there was no chance of seeing an opera with such an obscene subject performed on a German or Austrian stage. The fact that twelvetone music was now declared un-German and "entartet" (degenerate) didn’t make things easier for the composer. At his sudden death at the age of only 50 he left the opera unfinished, and the torso was premiered in Zurich in 1937. It was only in the 1970s that the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha undertook the completion of the third act on the basis of Berg’s drafts, and this version, premiered in Paris in 1978, has since become the accepted one.

The title-role poses enormous difficulties for a soprano, vocal as well as physical. It is no showpiece for a blasée primadonna, but the singer who undertakes it has to be prepared to commit herself totally - body and soul. Berg saw the character as the female pendant to Don Juan, only that her female sexuality is less overtly aggressive than the Don’s. But her manipulative wiles nevertheless wreak havoc among the persons who come near her, men and women alike. Wedekind wanted her to be played “like the Madonna”, so the reviewers who found fault with Agneta Eichenholtz’s impersonation because in their eyes she was not femme fatale enough missed the point entirely (in my opinion at least). Die Urgestalt des Weibes is a cipher, a blank canvas onto which everyone can (and does) project their own desires and fantasies. Lulu is neither angel nor demon but becomes what successive lovers want her to be.
Agneta Eichenholtz looked like Snow White, totally innocent and harmless, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, which made her rendering of the lines “Wenn die Menschen sich für mich umbringen, dafür kann ich doch nicht!”all the more chilling. She impersonated this “somnambulist in the field of love” (“Nachtwandlerin der Liebe” - Karl Kraus), who floats through life aimlessly and like an automaton, without taking notice of her surroundings, to perfection. Vocally she was also up to the challenge, her light girlish timbre matching her ingenue looks.

Of course, “Lulu” is an ensemble piece and the ROH had come up with a formidable array of first-class singers for all the other parts. Michael Volle made a very strong impact as the doomed alpha male Dr. Schön who, in vain, tries to assert his authority over Lulu and is manipulated by her into marriage and subsequently killed. His strong voice and robust physique stood in stark contrast to his emotional and psychological helplessness. Here was a fall indeed! In the end he gets his revenge when he returns as Jack the Ripper to finish Lulu off! Klaus-Florian Vogt had the right anodyne voice for Dr. Schön’s weakling son Alwa; Will Hartmann gave a touching performance as the guileless painter; Philip Langridge was equally convincing as the Prince who sees in Lulu the ideal wife and the sinister Marquis who threatens to sell her to an Egyptian brothel; Peter Rose (whom I remember as a great Basilio in the unforgettable “Barbiere” at Berlin Staatsoper with Jennifer Larmore, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, William Matteuzzi and Carlos Chausson in 1994!) as the animal trainer of the prologue and the athlete added a humoristic touch and reminded one that “Lulu” is also a comedy of sorts; Gwynne Howell was the shady Schigolch, the evil spirit, like Hoffmann's Dappertutto, who mysteriously seems to pull the strings from behind the scenes.

Which leaves only one character still to deal with: Gräfin Geschwitz. According to Wedekind she is "the tragic central character” (“die tragische Hauptperson”) of the piece; she loves Lulu unconditionally and “in an act of superhuman self-sacrifice” follows her to the bitter end. Apparently Christoph Loy took Wedekind at his word and made every effort to show the countess as the single sympathetic person in this array of freakish characters. In an interview he said that he didn’t want a cliché lesbian but “a feminine and attractive Geschwitz, a delicate creature, but one who is consistent in her actions. She remains true to her love for Lulu even though Lulu increasingly turns away from her.” To make his point Loy even went so far as to alter the final scene and lets the countess escape the Ripper’s knife: “I really feel that Geschwitz’s murder doesn’t need to be recounted. I’d be happy for her to survive, so that at that moment the Utopian element in the music also becomes a factor in the plot – so that tenderness and love can survive.” Hmmmm…I have to confess I was not entirely happy with this solution; although the effect of countess Geschwitz delivering her final lines “Lulu, mein Engel…” standing up, like entranced, with a spotlight from above illuminating her face was quite stunning and even otherworldly. But in my view there is nothing Utopian in this most bleak and gloomy piece and there can be no survivors.

What did Jennie make of this part which at first sight seems a very odd choice indeed for her, given her credentials as a Baroque and belcanto singer? How would she, the charming Rosina, the touching Angelina, the pert Isabella, the imperious Caesar, the tomboyish Hansel, the sultry Carmen, the lovelorn Marguerite fare as the doomed lesbian countess? Well, I can say she scored a resounding success! Critics were unanimous in their praise for her humane, sincere, touching and intelligently-nuanced interpretation. (See the listing of quotations below.) She was utterly convincing in her acting and in her singing, avoiding all caricature, delivering even cliché-laden lines like “Ich muß für Frauenrechte kämpfen, Jurisprudenz studieren.“ (Beware! No „normal“ woman would do such a thing!) with conviction. Even M. Brug, the often venomous critic of “Die Welt”, was bowled over (my translation): “The biggest surprise was Jennifer Larmore, the well-known queen of Rossini roulades: she impersonates countess Geschwitz as truly loving (“aufrichtig Liebende”), with sparing gestures to great effect, moving in every nuance of her singing.”

In short, her portrayal was an utter triumph and she can add another role to her still growing repertoire. I who had heard her only a couple of days before in a concert of Handel arias at the Halle festival was amazed how she could switch so seemingly effortlessly between Baroque and twelvetone music.

Last but not least, the excellent orchestra of the ROH, under the baton of Antonio Pappano, contributed to the success of this staging by delivering this complex and intricate score with eloquence and passion, emphasizing the lush Mahlerian qualities of this rhapsodic music, so that I who had entered the opera house with some misgivings came away utterly enthralled. I have climbed Mount (Berg!) Everest of twelvetone music and now new horizons have opened up before me.

And I am happy to report that this memorable performance was recorded and will later be made available on dvd!