Barenboim Archive

BERG: Lulu (David Robert Coleman completion) – DGG

by Audiophile Audition | Mar 20, 2017 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews

A production for idiots, and a musical completion that spells disaster. ALBAN BERG: Lulu (complete opera, David Robert Coleman completion) Cast: Mojca Erdmann (Lulu)/ Deborah Polaski (Countess Geschwitz)/ Michael Volle (Jack the Ripper)/ Thomas Piffka (Alwa)/ Stephan Rügamer (Painter/Negro) Orch.: Staatskapelle Berlin/ Daniel Barenboim Director: Andrea Breth Studio: DGG 00440 073 4934 Video: 16:9 widescreen Audio: PCM Stereo, DTS 5.1 surround Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Korean No Region Code Length: 156 minutes Rating: ** This is a new completion of Berg’s opera, one that proves as willful and ostensibly unidiomatic as can possibly be imagined. The production attempts to disguise this fact, but then you read in the booklet “As a result of Berg’s sudden death in 1935, his second and last opera remained a fragment and has now been completed by David Robert Coleman, who was commissioned by the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden to elaborate the composer’s sketches. The result is this new “Berlin version”, premiered in 2012, which omits the prologue and the so called “Paris scene” at the beginning of Act III, in order to condense the plot and to underline the symmetrical structure intended by Berg.” I am not an expert on this […]