We Poor Opera-Lovers!

courtesy of Naxos of America

At the beginning of last month, Naxos released a video recording of the Dutch National Opera production of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck in both Blu-ray and DVD formats. Marc Albrecht conducts the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chorus of the Dutch National Opera with baritone Christopher Maltman singing the title role and soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek as Marie. The cast is a large one; but it is also work singling out bass-baritone Willard White in the role of the Doctor, homing in on just the right balance between brutal authority and comedy.

I should probably make a few initial observations, which may serve, in part, as a disclaimer. Having seen several productions of this opera, along with one staging of the play by Georg Büchner on which the libretto (prepared by Berg himself) is based and the Werner Herzog cinematic interpretation of that play, I was not sure that I wanted my meager shelf space to deal with another video. Nevertheless, I was so impressed with Albrecht’s work as conductor of the San Francisco Opera in this past fall’s production of Richard Strauss’ Arabella that I could not resist checking out his approach to Berg.

The good news is that I was as impressed with Albrecht’s account of Berg, even given the limitations of audio production in the face of the extensive number of music resources required to perform the Wozzeck score, as I had been with his evocation of Strauss’ lush sonorities. The bad news was that, in order to appreciate Albrecht’s musicianship, I had to sit through what has to been the worst dramatic interpretation of this opera that I have ever experienced. The staging responsible for my unease was provided by the Polish theater director Krzysztof Warlikowski. His Wikipedia page suggests that Warlikowski has a rich educational background, with passing mention that he “learned also from Peter Brook.” To paraphrase a Zen proverb, my guess is that his cup was too full of tea to make any room in which Brook could have added any influence.

I once saw a film about Brook’s work on Shakespeare in which he began by explaining that, before conceiving of any staging, one must begin by identifying what the story is in the most basic possible terms. The good news is that Warlikowski did this at the very beginning by projecting a text summarizing an 1821 homicide case that inspired Büchner’s play. The bad news was that just about every aspect of Warlikowski’s direction seemed to go to great lengths to trample that underlying narrative out of existence.

Now, as a rule, I do not object to radical revisionism, as long as there are some basic ground rules for logical coherence. Where Wozzeck is concerned, however, the fact that Berg wrote his own libretto is significant. Not only does his music take a deep dive into teasing out the natures of the individual characters but also it is often the case that the score reflects the actions themselves.

Berg’s attention to detail is particularly evident during the third scene of the first act, where Marie is watching the military parade through the window of her room, arguing with Margret, who is on the outside. When she slams the window shut, the orchestra takes a steep-descent diminuendo to reinforce the elimination of all of that exterior noise. By eliminating Marie’s room from his staging, Warlikowski robs Berg’s musical gesture of all meaning.

There are any number of other examples in which Warlikowski’s efforts run the gamut from clueless to just plain offensive. (Don’t get me started on the undercurrent of paedophilia.) This is a case in which Naxos would do well to extract the audio track of this video and release it in CD format. There is much to learn from listening to Albrecht’s interpretation of Berg, and the benefit of that experience should not be undermined by Warlikowski’s visual interference.