Olga Neuwirth, American Lulu

One friend, perfectly
reasonably, said that he had not taken to it when he had seen it in Berlin; I
wish I had had the chance to press him more on why. However, he did suggest
that the staging — presumably at the Komische Oper premiere — may have been
a considerable part of the problem. Others, though, seemed to recoil at the
very idea. Who did Olga Neuwirth think she was, adapting Berg’s opera into
her own? For once, I almost felt myself the voice of reason, then stopped short
when I recalled that to have been the title of an especially nasty
right-wing newspaper column
. At any rate, I had no a priori
objection to what sounded as though it were simply the continuation of
practices that dated back as long as any conception of the musical work, and
indeed beyond. I have always preferred the Second Viennese School arrangements
of Johann Strauss to the ‘originals’; Mozart’s Handel reworkings, whether
in terms of arrangement or more thoroughgoing recomposition have long
fascinated me; and as for Bach, whether his rewriting of other music, sometimes
his own, sometimes that of others, or the multitude of rewritings, in whatever
form, offered by composers from Mozart to George Benjamin… They vary wildly
in quality, of course, and that seemed to me the only point; the question was
not whether Neuwirth had any ‘right’ to adapt Berg’s opera, but whether
it worked.

I think it did, or at least much of it did. I cede to no one in my love for
Lulu — save, perhaps to one of Neuwirth’s teachers, Luigi Nono,
who described it as one of the two greatest operas of the twentieth century,
the other being Schoenberg’s Die gl¸ckliche Hand. I know Berg’s
score — and Friedrich Cerha’s completion — pretty well, and found myself
not annoyed, but fascinated by the interplay between Berg and Neuwirth. In a
work that lasts about half the time of the original, Neuwirth adapts, including
reorchestration, the first two acts, and writes her own third act, both text
and music. (English translations, concerning which, I found some more
convincing than others, were provided by Richard Stokes and Catherine
Kerkhoff-Saxon in the first two acts, and Kerkhoff-Saxon alone in the third.)
One might miss the gorgeous post-Romantic labyrinthine depth of Berg, but to
hear his music refracted as it was, pointed in a different direction by a
new(-ish) story held its own interest — just as, say, Berio’s work on
composers as different as Boccherini, Purcell, and Schubert has. (If only he
had lived to complete his realisation of L’incoronazione di
Poppea
…) And so, with Berg’s — admittedly, selectively employed —
jazz-influenced scoring in mind, Neuwirth’s reorchestration and composition
alike make their move to New Orleans via a wind-dominated ensemble, Berg’s
voluptuous strings put in their place and perhaps now heard through
Brecht-Weill. (No one, I hasten to add, is saying that Berg is ‘improved
upon’; that is not the point.) I was less sure about the introduction of more
popular music ‘proper’, especially Eleanor’s blues music, into the score;
its inclusion, presumably intentionally so, seemed oddly uncritical, as if, in
a curious inversion or at least evasion of Adorno, Berg’s opera requires
subjection to criticism but that of an allegedly purer popular culture does
not. And yet, as I shall come to describe, there is a dialectical twist that
would at least partially assist in that regard. The new version of the film
music — what a relief it was actually to see a film, practically the only
moment in present-day staging of opera where film seems to be eschewed — is
brought to us, like the ‘jazz band’ music via a recording of a Wonder
Morton organ: evocative, contemporaneous, and yet also, rightly for a new work,
somewhat oblique in its relationship to the ‘original’.

The third act of Lulu, which Neuwirth, wrongly to my mind yet
perhaps nevertheless fruitfully, regards as ‘unsatisfactory’ — ‘after
great trials and tribulations, two women are simply slaughtered by a serial
killer; and that is that’ — becomes instead ‘an unresolved murder
case’, but more to the point here, offers her own music, clearly flowing from
that of Berg, still more from that of Berg-Neuwirth, and yet which quite
properly takes on a life of its own: a twenty-first-century reimagination of
post-expresssionist music. There are vocal leaps; there is vocal seduction;
there is a hard-edged, yet sinuous quality, in line with Berg’s own. I should
need to hear it again to say much more; yet, to answer the earlier question,
for the most part, and bearing in mind my cavil concerning the blues music in
particular, I think it worked.

I deliberately started with the music but ought to say something briefly
about the new setting. Instead of the Prologue, we start at the end, in 1970s
New York, when Clarence (Schigolch) asks Lulu why, when she is now so wealthy,
she is no more satisfied, prompting her to look back at her life, beginning in
1950s New Orleans. A photographer with whom she is living is soon supplanted by
Dr Bloom, purchaser of the pictures; Lulu dances in Bloom’s club, music
written for her by his son, Jimmy. (I do not need in laboured fashion to point
out who is who with respect to Berg; it is perfectly clear, though some of
Berg’s intricate parallelism falls by the wayside as Neuwirth’s drama takes
on a different trajectory.) Initially I found the substitution of Eleanor, a
singer, for Geschwitz, something of a disappointment. The ‘otherness’ —
if I am honest, banality — of her music, however well sung by Jacqui
Dankworth, seemed too obvious, too lacking in integrative or indeed
disintegrative power. However, and I hope this was not merely a product of my
fevered imagination, there is criticism, if not so much of her music, then of
the hippyish psycho-babble in which her reproaches — she is by the third act
a successful singer, though still hurt by Lulu’s prior rejection — are
couched. She too, it seems, is capable of exploitative behaviour. As indeed are
we all, and some of it, like Neuwirth’s, may even be construed positively. We
should not fall for bogus notions of the ‘jargon of authenticity’.
Meanwhile, all the while, the drama is punctuated by reminders of the Civil
Rights Movement: words from Dr King, and sounds, in Eleanor’s final song, of
‘We shall overcome’. It is certainly not subtle, and it is perhaps all too
easy to say ‘that is the point,’ but its contribution was nevertheless
greater than to make us appreciate more fully the balancing-act between
existential and social — far too often tilted in favour of the former — in
Berg’s opera. (Should we consider American Lulu in reference to
Berg’s work, or as a work in itself? That depends, of course, on who ‘we’
are. Either we know the original or we do not, but a question that permits
neither of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as a ‘straight’ answer is a good question
for Neuwirth to be asking audiences, steeped in the self-righteous delusions of
Werktreue.)

This was a co-production by The Opera Group, the Young Vic, Scottish Opera,
and the Bregenz Festival, in association with the London Sinfonietta. The
latter was on excellent form throughout, splendidly guided, insofar as one
could tell from an initial hearing, by Gerry Cornelius. I was certainly as
gripped by the orchestral performance as by the puzzles and challenges of
Neuwirth’s work itself. John Fulljames makes a great deal from relatively
little on the small stage of the Young Vic. Video was used sparingly but to
great effect, Finn Ross’s work employing characters from the stage greatly
appreciated, as mentioned above. The uncomfortable voyeurism of having Lulu
change on stage, taking her clothes from a wardrobe and almost defying us not
to watch, has one’s mind working, as it should, in different directions:
self-interrogation, heightened by the (Brechtian?) presence onstage behind a
see-through curtain of the orchestra. Construction of reality, perception of
what may or may not be epic, is not simply our own task, but it is so at least
in part, as in Lulu’s mind.

Angel Blue offered a charismatic assumption of the title role. It is of
course far shorter than Berg’s, but has different challenges, the slipping
between speech, parlando, and glorious, if all-too-brief (deliberately so?),
passages in which the voice may truly soar a case of ongoing reinvention. Her
stage presence, just as in ENO’s
recent BohËme
, was scintillating. In this opera, more than
Berg’s, the other cast members are lesser beings, but there was much to enjoy
from their various contributions. Paul Curievici, for instance, furthered the
strong impression he recently made in The
Importance of Being Earnest
, and Donald Maxwell continued to hold the
stage even at what must be approaching the twilight of his career.

Emma Woodvine, credited as ‘dialect coach’ seemed to have done a good
job. I still wonder about the practice, though, of having assumed accents, be
they from the South or elsewhere. It seems curiously selective; for instance,
when we have a performance of Carmen, whether in French or in
translation, we do not usually hear the dialogue — or, for that matter, the
vocal lines — delivered in the tones of Seville. Better, I think, to let
actors, including singing actors, act than to have them turn impressionists.
(That runs both ways, of course; those complaining, as sometimes they do, about
American or other accents in English dialogue should probably find better
things to do with their time.) No matter; it is a minor point, indeed more of a
question. And a great strength of this evening was the questioning that it
provoked.

Mark Berry


Cast and production information:

Lulu: Angel Blue; Clarence: Robert Winslade Anderson; Dr Bloom:
Donald Maxwell; Jimmy: Jonathan Stoughton; Eleanor: Jacqui Dankworth;
Photographer, Young Man: Paul Curievici; Athlete: Simon Wilding; Professor,
Banker, Police Commissioner: Paul Reeves. Director: John Fulljames; Designer:
Magda Willi; Lighting: Guy Hoare; Video: Finn Ross; Sound: Carolyn Downing;
London Sinfonietta/ Gerry Cornelius (conductor). Young Vic Theatre, London,
Saturday 14 September 2013


image=http://www.operatoday.com/Olga_Neuwirth04gr.gif
image_description=Olga Neuwirth [Photo by Harald Fronzeck]
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product_title=Olga Neuwirth, American Lulu
product_by=A review by Mark Berry
product_id=Above: Olga Neuwirth [Photo by Harald Fronzeck]