Lulu (opera)

For 1824 Danish fairy tale opera, see Lulu (Kuhlau opera).

Lulu
Opera by Alban Berg
1974 Spoleto production poster
Librettist	Berg
Language	German
Based on	Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora by Frank Wedekind
Premiere	2 June 1937 (1937-06-02) Zurich Opera

Lulu (1929–35; premiered incomplete 1937, complete 1979) is an opera that Austrian composer Alban Berg created from Frank Wedekind's Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904). Berg used twelve-tone technique amid rising cultural hostility and died having almost finished the opera. Its two acts and finale were staged until Friedrich Cerha finished act 3 from Berg's short score and sketches in 1979. Theodor W. Adorno called it "one of those works that reveals the extent of its quality the longer and more deeply one immerses oneself in it."

Lulu, an ambiguous femme fatale, is framed by chiastic structures in the music drama. Her first husband dies upon finding her with her next husband, who dies by suicide upon learning she has been married off and sexually exploited since childhood. She marries a businessman she says rescued and loved her. As he tries to kill her, she kills him. Aided by her lesbian admirer Geschwitz, she escapes prison and flees to Paris with her lover Alwa, the businessman's son. A stock market crash ruins them, reducing her to street prostitution in London. Clients, her husbands' doppelgängers, kill Alwa, her, and Geschwitz.

Background

Source texts and treatment

Berg based Lulu on Wedekind's two Lulu plays: Erdgeist for the first half, and Die Büchse der Pandora for the second. Berg likely read Erdgeist by 1903. He saw writer–journalist Karl Kraus's production of Die Büchse der Pandora on 29 May 1905. In an introductory speech, which Berg admired, Kraus called Lulu "destroyer of all because everyone destroyed her". A former street child, she is an attractive 15-year-old and sometime dancer, prostitute, or mistress. Her old pimp Schigolch may be her father or sexual partner.

Berg, 1927 (Georg Fayer)

Berg repeatedly maps identities and reverses roles in the chiastic music drama, tying her three doomed husbands to her three fateful clients. He remakes Alwa, Wedekind's dramatist, into a composer, his self-portrait (Lulu's apparent antithesis). He may have modeled Geschwitz on his lesbian sister Smaragda, Dr. Schön on his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, the Painter on Richard Gerstl, and Schigolch on his wife Helene's possible father Franz Joseph I of Austria. As in Wozzeck, the physician may represent society. In Lulu, he promptly dies of shock.

Berg's Waldhaus

History of composition process

Wozzeck's success funded Lulu, on which Berg worked from 1929, including at his secluded Carinthian Waldhaus (house in the woods). He was tied to Schoenberg, who was Jewish, as antisemitism grew. The Soviet Union banned Wozzeck as "bourgeois". Many theaters dropped it. The Weimar Republic's last productions, including the Berlin State Opera's under Erich Kleiber, were in 1932.

In Nazi Germany, Berg's work was labeled "cultural Bolshevism" and "degenerate music". Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler wrote Berg in spring 1934 that Lulu's Berlin debut was doomed, so Berg prepared the Lulu Suite (Five Symphonic Pieces) for coloratura soprano and orchestra. Kleiber led the suite's Berlin premiere on November 30, four days before resigning. Die Musik issued a harsh review, Nazi official Joseph Goebbels decried atonal composers' "moral decay", and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik chided positive press as ideologically confused.

Violinist Louis Krasner offered Berg $1,500 for a concerto in January 1935. Berg hesitated to set Lulu aside but, facing ruin, had accepted and begun by late March. He heard the suite's 20 March BBC broadcast, produced by Edward Clark, from London's Queen's Hall under Adrian Boult. After his close friend Alma Mahler's daughter Manon Gropius died on April 22, he focused on the Violin Concerto in her memory, finishing by August. He attended the suite's December 11 Vienna premiere and died December 24. Lulu's third act, mostly in short score with sketched orchestration, was finished through its first 268 bars and in the sections used in the suite: the variations and Geschwitz's epilogue.

Composition

Lulu at work (costume sketch, David Borovsky)

Like Wozzeck, Lulu is a tragedy of protagonists victimized by social forces.

Dramatic overview

Prologue: The Animal Tamer calls for the serpent, Lulu.

The Painter

Act 1, scene 1: In a late-19th-century, vaguely Viennese studio, Lulu poses for her portrait. Dr. Schön and his son Alwa visit. They leave, the Painter ravishes her, and Dr. Goll, her physician husband, breaks the door open on them and drops dead, horrifying the Painter and leaving Lulu, who seems evasive, rich (transformation music). Scene 2: Her portrait sells well after she marries the Painter, but as the beggar Schigolch visits and Schön rejects her, the Painter uncovers horrifying truths and dies by suicide, prompting Lulu to insist that Schön marry her. Scene 3: Lulu and Alwa discuss the Prince, who wants to marry her, but amid another confrontation with Schön, she persuades him to break his engagement to a more respectable woman.

Act 2, scene 1: Geschwitz, Schigolch's clients, and Alwa all pay Lulu amorous visits. Her husband Schön confronts her jealously and demands her suicide, which he tries to stage, clasping a revolver into her hands and trying to make her shoot herself. She manages to shoot him dead and offers Alwa her fidelity in exchange for freedom before police arrive. Film interlude: She is arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned but escapes from an isolation ward. Scene 2: After plans to free her unfold and Geschwitz helps her contract cholera, Lulu returns disguised as Geschwitz, rejoices at her freedom, and rekindles her intimate relationship with Alwa, who idealizes her. They elope to Paris.

The Negro

Act 3, scene 1: At Lulu's birthday party, blackmail, sexual exploitation, and financial ruin close in on her, leading her to manipulate Geschwitz and persuade Schigolch to kill one blackmailer. As the stock market crashes, she and Alwa narrowly escape police (transformation – variations). Scene 2: In London, Lulu survives by prostitution as perhaps before in her childhood, while Alwa faces his ruin. Seeking money, Schigolch finds a book of homilies in the coat of Lulu's first client, the Professor (the double of her first husband Dr. Goll), who discreetly pays Lulu in advance. Her second client, a self-proclaimed prince (the Negro, the Painter's double) refuses to pay, attacks Lulu, and bludgeons Alwa. Geschwitz, lovesick, contemplates suicide. Lulu is so captivated by or afraid of her third client, Jack the Ripper (Schön's double), that she accedes to his demand to waive payment. He murders Lulu and stabs the devoted Geschwitz, who dies singing to Lulu.

Scoring

Roles

Roles, voice types, premiere casts in Zürich, Paris

Role	Voice type or Fach	Zürich Opera premiere, 2-act version, 2 June 1937 Conductor: Robert Denzler	Paris Opéra premiere, 3-act version, 24 February 1979 Conductor: Pierre Boulez
Lulu	Hoher Sopran	Bahrija Nuri Hadžić	Teresa Stratas
Countess Martha Geschwitz	Dramatischer Mezzosopran	Maria Bernhard	Yvonne Minton
A theatrical dresser (Eine Theater-Garderobiere) (Act 1) A schoolboy (Ein Gymnasiast) (Act 2) Bob, A valet (Ein Groom) (Act 3)	Alt	Frida Kurz Erika Feichtinger –	Hanna Schwarz
The Painter, Lulu's second husband (Act 1) The Negro (Act 3)	Lyrischer Tenor	Paul Feher –	Robert Tear
Dr. Ludwig Schön, (Chefredakteur), editor-in-chief (Acts 1 & 2) Jack the Ripper (Act 3)	Heldenbariton	Asger Stig –	Franz Mazura
Alwa, Dr. Schön's son, a composer	Jugendlicher Heldentenor	Peter Baxevanos	Kenneth Riegel
Schigolch, an old man	Hoher Charakterbass	Fritz Honisch	Toni Blankenheim
Doctor Goll (Der Medizinalrat – Medical officer), Lulu's first husband	spoken	Peter Poschl	Toni Blankenheim
An animal tamer (Tierbändiger) (Prolog) Rodrigo, (Ein Athlet), an Athlete (Acts 2 & 3)	Heldenbass mit Buffo-Einschlag	Albert Emmerich	Gerd Nienstedt
The prince, a traveller in Africa / The manservant / The marquis	Tenor-Buffo	Oscar Mörwald (role of Marquis not sung in 1937)	Helmut Pampuch
The theatre manager	Bass-Buffo (tief)	Walter Frank	Jules Bastin
The professor A clown A stagehand	silent		Le Nain Roberto
A 15-year-old girl	Opernsoubrette		Daniele Chlostawa
Her mother	Alt		Ursula Boese
A woman artist	Mezzosopran		Anna Ringart
The Banker	Hoher Bass		Jules Bastin
A journalist	Hoher Bariton		Claude Méloni
The police commissioner	spoken		Toni Blankenheim
A manservant	Tiefer Bariton		Pierre-Yves Le Maigat
Pianist, stage manager, attendants of the prince, policemen, nurses, wardresses, dancers, party guests, servants, workers

Dr. Goll mirrors the silent Professor (and is sometimes cast as him)

Many cast members besides Lulu's husbands have multiple roles, including the Dresser–Schoolboy–Valet (mezzo-soprano breeches role), Prince–Manservant–Marquis (tenor), Theater Manager–Banker (high bass), and Animal Tamer–Athlete (bass buffo).

The characters have proper names, though Berg names only Lulu, Dr. Schön, Alwa, Geschwitz, Schigolch, and, in dialogue, the Painter Walter Schwarz. Wedekind's evocative names are sometimes applied to Berg's more archetypal roles (e.g., the Athlete Rodrigo Quast, the Banker Puntschu).

Instrumentation

Woodwinds

3 flutes (all doubling piccolos)

3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn)

3 clarinets in B♭ (1st and 2nd doubling E♭ clarinets)

bass clarinet in B♭

alto saxophone in E♭

3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon)

Brass

4 horns in F

3 trumpets in C

3 trombones

tuba

Percussion

timpani

triangle

tambourine

snare drum

jazz drum

bass drum

cymbals

switch

2 tam-tams (high and low)

xylophone

vibraphone

Keyboard

piano

Strings

harp

violins I

violins II

violas

cellos

double basses

The onstage jazz band in act 1, scene 3 (instrumentalists can be drawn from the pit players) consists of:

2 clarinets in B♭

alto saxophone in E♭

tenor saxophone in B♭

2 Jazz trumpets in C

2 Jazz trombones

sousaphone

Jazz drum set (3 players)

banjo

piano

3 violins with jazz horns

contrabass

In act 3, scene 2, Cerha's edition uses a small onstage ensemble that requires:

piccolo

flute

3 clarinets in B♭

bass clarinet in B♭

contrabassoon

Lulu is arguably the first seminal work of western art music that used the vibraphone, an instrument that had previously been associated with jazz. However, it has been used in smaller works by major composers prior to Lulu, such as Maurice Ravel's orchestrations of Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and Ronsard à son âme ^[fr] (1933 and 1935 respectively), as well as Darius Milhaud's incidental music to L'annonce faite à Marie (1932).

Music

Berg was obsessed with symmetry in his works and Lulu is no exception, the whole being perceived as a palindrome or mirror. Lulu's popularity in the first act is mirrored by the squalor she lives in during act 3, and this is emphasised by Lulu's husbands in act 1 being played by the same singers as her clients in act 3. The motifs associated with each are repeated. Berg also uses the Tristan chord to symbolize love and death.

Midpoint

The mirrorlike structure is further emphasised by the film interlude at act 2 at the midpoint. The events shown in the film are a miniature version of the mirror structure of the opera as a whole (Lulu enters prison and then leaves again) and the music accompanying the film is an exact palindrome – it reads the same forwards as backwards. The centre of this palindrome is indicated by an arpeggio played on the piano, first rising, then falling (shown here on the top staff).

Berg assigns specific vocal styles to each character with descriptive orchestral representation, recapitulative episodes to emphasise psychological significance and pitch-sets. Recapitulation includes having single singers performing multiple roles. The use of pitch includes the use of twelve-tone rows.

Pierrot, as whom Lulu is portrayed

Lulu on her birthday

Alwa

Dr. Schön

Schoolboy

Tone rows

Cell z (also one of the basic cells in Bartók's String Quartet No. 4) is the basic cell of Lulu and generates trope I:

The two non-identical forms of trope I, each generated from all even or odd forms of cell z

Although some of Lulu is freely composed, Berg also makes use of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Rather than using one tone row for the entire work, however, he gives each character his or her own tone row, meaning that the tone rows act rather like the leitmotifs in Richard Wagner's operas.

Berg's Lulu basic tone row on C

From this one tone row, Berg derives tone rows for many of the characters. For example, the tone row associated with Lulu herself is: F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D, F♯, D♯, E, A, B, C♯. This row is constructed by extracting one note (F) from the basic row's first trichord, then taking the next note (G) from the basic row's second trichord, then taking the third note (A♭) from the basic row's third trichord, and so on, cycling through the basic row three times.

Berg's Lulu Alwa tone row on C

The tone row associated with Alwa is arrived at by repeating the basic tone row over and over and taking every seventh note;

Derivation of Alwa series from basic series by taking every seventh note from repetitions of the basic series.

this results in the following tone row: B♭, F♯, E♭, G♯, F, B, E, D, A, C, C♯, G

Berg's Lulu Dr. Schön tone row on C

Similarly, the tone row associated with Dr. Schön is arrived at by repeating the basic tone row (as in the previous example) and taking the first note, missing one note, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, missing three, taking the next, missing three, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, missing one, taking the next, missing one, taking the next, missing two, taking the next, and so on; this results in the following tone row: B♭, E♭, G, G♯, D, F, E, A, B, C, F♯, C♯

Berg's Lulu Schoolboy tone row on C

Musicodramatic synopsis

Animal Tamer

Prologue

The Clown beats a bass drum and cymbal, accompanying the Animal Tamer, who welcomes the audience and introduces the menagerie's animals, including the serpent, Lulu (Lulu motif).

Act 1

Scene 1

Studio

She poses as Pierrot with a shepherd's crook. After news editor Dr. Schön and his son Alwa visit, the Painter chases and ravishes her (canon), calling her Gnädige Frau, Nelly, and Eva.

Dr. Schön

Her husband, Dr. Goll, breaks the door open on them and drops dead. After some coy denial (canzonetta), she says she is rich. The Painter, horrified, questions her (duet). She repeats "I don't know" (Ich weiss es nicht, echoing Parsifal). The Painter tells Goll's corpse he would trade places (arioso).

Verwandlungsmusik (Transformation Music)

Scene 2

Apartment drawing room

Lulu's portrait sold profitably, the Painter gushes. Schön's engagement notice stings her. The Painter finds her ravishing (love duettino). The asthmatic beggar Schigolch rings and visits "Lulu" covertly (wind nonet). As they reminisce, she confides that she feels reduced to an animal. The doorbell rings.

Schigolch

Schigolch exits as Schön enters, renouncing her. They argue (sonata). "I belong to you", she cries (coda: love theme, monoritmica). Schön insists. Furious, she withdraws.

External videos
Analysis of the coda

The Painter returns. Schön says he sent Mignon (Lulu), a 12-year-old flower seller, to an "aunt". He calls Schigolch Lulu's father. Lulu tried supplanting Schön's wife, so he married her off. He helped promote the Painter, who, shaken, agrees to restrain her. She returns.

The Painter groans behind a locked door. Alwa rings and enters, mentioning revolution in Paris. They break down the door: the Painter is dead. She screams. Schön phones police, mentioning the Painter's persecutory delusions. She suggests a newspaper extra to divert attention. The doorbell rings. She tells Schön he will marry her (Lulu motif).

Interlude (Love theme)

Scene 3

Alwa

Theater dressing room with her portrait poster

A jazz band plays ragtime, perhaps Alwa's. She and he discuss the Prince taking her to Africa. Alwa envisioned Lulu replacing his late mother. A bell calls her. She is dancing in a tutu to bag a rich husband. Smitten, Alwa imagines a Lulu opera (Wozzeck quotation). Applause intrudes.

The Prince enters. He will marry her ("Treulich geführt" quotation). Alwa says Schön's reviews made her famous.

Bells ring. Staff rush her backstage. She fainted at Schön and his fiancée. Schön says she is making a scene to trap him. Everyone comments, voices clamoring (sextet). The show resumes. She dictates Schön's breakup letter (letter duet). He foresees his execution but cannot resist. She retakes the stage.

Act 2

Scene 1

Renaissance-style parlor

Countess Geschwitz visits Schön's wife Lulu with a ball invitation and flowers, and offers to paint her portrait, admiring it before leaving. Schön draws a revolver, reflecting on his madness. Lulu asks for his afternoon (cavatina). He claims to have business. They go to the bedroom. Geschwitz covertly reenters.

Athlete

Schigolch returns "home", he says, with clients: the Athlete and Schoolboy. Lulu reenters wearing a ball gown and flowers. They fantasize about her, including Schigolch, who denies being her father (canon). Lulu agrees she never had one. They discuss Schön's paranoia.

The Manservant announces "Herr Dr. Schön". The clients hide. Schigolch leaves. Alwa enters. (The elder Schön lurks.) He waxes poetic (hymnal music) and takes her hand, asking if she loves him (Tristan chord). She does not know, she repeats: she poisoned his mother. (Schön draws on the Athlete, who points to Alwa.)

Mentioning revolution, Schön barricades Alwa and hands Lulu the revolver (5-strophe aria), urging suicide to save Alwa. She testfires. Schön retakes it and barricades Geschwitz. Lulu proposes divorce. Schön demands suicide, handing back the gun. She can only live "as what I am" (Lied der Lulu). Schön tries forcing the "murderess" into a staged suicide (5th strophe). The Schoolboy interrupts. Lulu empties five rounds into Schön, killing him.

Alwa seizes Lulu. She offers her fidelity for freedom (arietta). The doorbell rings. "The police are here", says Alwa.

Lulu imprisoned

Film

A silent film set to tumultuous, rhythmic music shows her yearlong imprisonment in palindrome: arrest, detention, trial, cell-door closure, reflection in water (emphasizing her eyes), cell-door opening, doctors' rounds, hospitalization, and escape.

Scene 2

The same parlor, darker

Geschwitz, Alwa, and the Athlete discuss the prison escape. The Athlete will elope with Lulu to Paris. Schigolch takes the frail Geschwitz to hospital.

Alwa and the Athlete (tone clusters) clash over money and Alwa's lewd melodrama portraying Lulu. The Schoolboy, having broken out of juvenile detention, interrupts with a plan to free Lulu (chamber music). Alwa and the Athlete say she died and throw him out.

Lulu

Schigolch returns with the sickly Lulu, reassuring her about the coming border crossing (melodrama). Repulsed, the Athlete exits. Schigolch fetches rail tickets. "Oh, freedom!", she cries exultantly. She and Geschwitz traded places on a cholera ward.

Alwa and Lulu revisit her portrait, kiss, and caress (love duet – Alwa's hymn). She mentions Schön. Alwa hushes her.

Act 3

Scene 1

Grand drawing room, Paris

The Athlete toasts "Countess Adelaide" (Lulu) at her birthday party. The Marquis eyes a 15-year-old girl. Guests play baccarat and discuss their thriving Jungfrau Railway shares.

The Marquis is blackmailing Lulu (duet). He cannot wait for cash proceeds and wants her only for sex trafficking (Lied des Mädchenhändlers, quoting Wedekind's Lautenlieder No. 10 "Konfession"). She refuses (Lied der Lulu reprise). A Cairo brothel has outbid her bounty.

The Athlete delivers his own blackmail letter. Geschwitz approaches, saying Lulu has not requited her love. The Athlete menaces Lulu (duet). The Banker is telegrammed: "rail shares crash". Schigolch begs her for cash (duet). She confides in him, and he agrees to kill the Athlete.

Police commissioner

The Marquis and Athlete argue. She tells the Athlete to sleep with Geschwitz, who will then lend Lulu money to pay him. She offers herself to Geschwitz if Geschwitz beds the Athlete in a hotel (Schigolch's) that night. Geschwitz hesitantly agrees. Lulu swaps clothes with her valet. The market panic yields antisemitism. She and Alwa run. Police and the Marquis reach the valet, who starts to laugh.

Verwandlung – Variationen (Transformation – Variations)

Geschwitz

Scene 2

Dark, leaky London garret

The rain beats outside (barrel-organ tune, tremolo strings). Alwa and Schigolch face their ruin as Lulu tries street prostitution. They hide as she brings a meek Professor (Goll's silent double), who pays upfront and leaves.

Geschwitz brings a rolled-up canvas, Lulu's portrait. Lulu refuses it, nearly shrieking. Schigolch says it would wow clients (quartet). Enraptured, Alwa nails it to the wall. Stifled and haunted, Lulu returns to the streets, defying the sickly Alwa. Geschwitz chases.

Lulu's second client, the Negro (the Painter's double), is a self-proclaimed African prince who attacks her when she tries to arrange payment—and also Alwa, who intervened. Seeing Alwa dead, Lulu flees into the streets. Schigolch drags Alwa away and visits the pub when Geschwitz returns. Geschwitz contemplates suicide, pleading under Lulu's portrait for true love.

Jack the Ripper

Lulu's third client, Jack the Ripper (Schön's double), sees Geschwitz's supplication. Lulu calls Geschwitz her crazy sister and asks Jack to stay the night. Jack says Geschwitz is in love. He haggles, asks for change, and then demands Lulu's money. She cannot resist. They enter her moonlit bedroom.

Geschwitz envisions studying women's-rights law in Germany. Lulu cries "No!" repeatedly (low Tristan chord), culminating in her death scream (twelve-tone sonority). Geschwitz rattles the door. Bursting out, Jack stabs Geschwitz, gloats, and exits.

In her dying breath, Geschwitz sings to Lulu.

Reception

Helene Berg, 1927 (photo, Georg Fayer)

Friedrich Cerha, 1964 (photo, Willy Pragher)

Lulu has been performed in various incomplete forms. Schoenberg declined to complete it, and Helene later forbade completions of Lulu. When she died in 1976, Universal Edition published Friedrich Cerha's completed version, sometimes called the Paris version after its 1979 premiere. This version has often been performed since.

Incomplete forms

Erwin Stein made a piano–vocal score of act 3. Berg's widow Helene asked Schoenberg to finish Lulu. He had been struck by the underclass focus of Berg's operas and refused, calling the project time-consuming. Among some, Schoenberg objected to the antisemitic Journalist and Jewish Banker (act 3, scene 1). Berg had added derogatory language from antisemitic tropes to Wedekind's text, which Schoenberg refused to reinforce by finishing act 3, especially amid Nazism.

Journalist

Banker

Stein, with whom Adorno and Cerha later aligned, had removed the material from the vocal score and was more charitable to Berg. Cerha called Berg's additions dramatic, and composer–scholar George Perle stressed that Wedekind specified the Banker's Jewish identity. Both mentioned Kraus, who polemically examined German–Jewish assimilation and influenced Berg.

Helene then barred others from finishing Lulu. For over 40 years, acts 1–2 were staged whole, and act 3 was sometimes replaced by the Lulu Suite's act 3 excerpts. Zürich Opera premiered Lulu this way on 2 June 1937. Director Heinz Rückert shot the mid-opera film as Berg specified. The Staatsarchiv Zürich has four film stills, but Rückert's film is lost. New productions variously remake, borrow, adapt, or omit the film.

On 4 September 1949, at the Venice Biennale, La Fenice staged Lulu's Italian premiere, with Nino Sanzogno conducting. In 1953, Gustav König led Essen's municipal theater company in the German premiere on 7 March at the Grillo-Theater, starring Carla Spletter, and in the Netherlands premiere on 7 July during the Holland Festival at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. The BBC broadcast the latter on 10 August. In 1957, Hamburg State Opera revived Lulu in a Günther Rennert production, led by Leopold Ludwig and starring Helga Pilarczyk, which played at the Paris Opera in 1960, London's Sadler's Wells in 1962, and La Scala in 1963.

The Santa Fe Opera's general director John Crosby tried to secure the complete version for the company's 1963 US premiere of Lulu, featuring more of the third act, with Joan Carroll (Lulu), George Shirley (Alwa), Donald Gramm (Schön), and Elaine Bonazzi (Geschwitz) led by Robert Craft.

In 1966, Anja Silja debuted as Lulu in Wieland Wagner's production at the Staatsoper Stuttgart, later filmed with Carlos Alexander as Schön. In 1967, the Metropolitan Opera revived Rennert's production, with Anneliese Rothenberger (Lulu), Gerhard Unger (Alwa), Toni Blankenheim (Schön), and Kerstin Meyer (Geschwitz) led by Ludwig. Electrola recorded this cast in 1968.

Completed version

Helene Berg died in 1976. New York's Metropolitan Opera staged the incomplete Lulu in April 1977, with John Dexter directing and Carole Farley as Lulu. In 1979, Universal Edition published Friedrich Cerha's complete version of Lulu, and the Paris Opera premiered it on 24 February at the Palais Garnier, with Teresa Stratas as Lulu, Pierre Boulez conducting, and Patrice Chéreau directing. The complete Lulu's premiere was a sensation, and its recording won that year's Gramophone Award.

Santa Fe gave the complete Lulu's US premiere on 28 July, with Nancy Shade as Lulu, Barry Busse, Alwa, William Dooley, Schön, and Katherine Ciesinski, Geschwitz. The Metropolitan Opera followed in December 1980 and released a DVD. In 1981, The Royal Opera staged the complete Lulu's UK premiere, with Karan Armstrong as Lulu, Colin Davis conducting, and Götz Friedrich directing.

In 2015, the Metropolitan Opera staged and broadcast Lulu, with Marlis Petersen as Lulu and visual design by William Kentridge. The Dutch National Opera (2015), English National Opera (2016), and Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (2017) restaged this production with new casts.

Recordings

Year	Lulu, Alwa, Schön, Geschwitz	Conductor, company, version	Release
1952	Ilona Steingruber Hans Libert Otto Wiener Maria Cerny	Herbert Häfner Vienna Symphony 2 acts (incomplete)	Columbia Masterworks Records, vinyl SL-121
1968	Anneliese Rothenberger Gerhard Unger Toni Blankenheim Kerstin Meyer	Leopold Ludwig Hamburg Staatsoper 2 acts (incomplete)	Electrola, vinyl SMA 91711/13
1968	Evelyn Lear Donald Grobe Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Patricia Johnson	Karl Böhm Deutsche Oper Berlin 2 acts (incomplete)	Deutsche Grammophon, vinyl/CD
1976	Anja Silja Josef Hopferwieser Walter Berry Brigitte Fassbaender	Christoph von Dohnányi Vienna Philharmonic 2 acts (incomplete) and suite excerpts	Decca Records, vinyl D48D 3
1979	Teresa Stratas Kenneth Riegel Franz Mazura Yvonne Minton	Pierre Boulez Paris Opera 3 acts (Cerha)	Deutsche Grammophon, vinyl/CD 2711 024; 0289 463 6172 6
1983	Julia Migenes Richard Karczykowski Theo Adam Brigitte Fassbaender	Lorin Maazel Vienna State Opera (live) 3 acts (Cerha)	RCA Records, CD 74321 57734 2
1991	Patricia Wise Peter Straka Wolfgang Schöne Brigitte Fassbaender	Jeffrey Tate Orchestre National de France (live) 3 acts (Cerha)	EMI Records, CD 5 09400 2
1996	Constance Hauman Peter Straka Monte Jaffe Julia Juon	Ulf Schirmer Danish National Symphony Orchestra 3 acts (Cerha)	Chandos Records, CD 9540(3)
2006	Lisa Saffer John Graham-Hall Robert Hayward Susan Parry	Paul Daniel English National Opera 3 acts (Cerha), in English	Chandos Records, CD 3130
2009	Agneta Eichenholz Klaus Florian Vogt Michael Volle Jennifer Larmore	Antonio Pappano The Royal Opera 3 acts (Cerha)	Opus Arte, DVD B003LRQ0XU
2014	Barbara Hannigan Charles Workman Dietrich Henschel Natascha Petrinsky	Paul Daniel La Monnaie 3 acts (Cerha)	BelAir Classiques, DVD

See also

• Courtesan
• Erich Engel – used double casting in combining the Lulu plays
• Otto Falckenberg – created the version of the Lulu plays that likely most influenced Berg
• Hetairikoi dialogoi
• List of sex workers in literature
• Lolita (opera)
• Madonna–whore complex
• Mignon, based on Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
• Friedrich Nietzsche's accounts of taming and recurrence
• Ragionamenti
• Street scenes (Ernst Kirchner artworks)
• Theosophical mysticism
• Vaudeville
• Otto Weininger

References

Sources

Books

• Adorno, Theodor W.; Brand, Juliane; Hailey, Christopher (1991). Alban Berg, Master of the Smallest Link. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–122. ISBN 0521330165. OCLC 22544628.
• Blades, James (2005) [1970]. Percussion instruments and their history (5th ed.). Westport, Conn.: Bold Strummer. ISBN 9780933224612.
• Doctor, Jennifer (1999). The BBC and ultra-modern music, 1922–1936: shaping a nation's tastes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521661171.
• Elliott, Antokoletz (2014). A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9781135037307.
• Hailey, Christopher, ed. (2010). Alban Berg and his world. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400836475.
• Hall, Patricia (1996). A view of Berg's Lulu through the autograph sources. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520088191.
• Harewood, Earl of, ed. (1987). Kobbé's Complete Opera Book (10th ed.). London: Bodley Head. ISBN 0-370-31017-9., see also The Complete Opera Book
• Huscher, Phillip (2006). The Santa Fe Opera: An American pioneer. Santa Fe, New Mexico: The Santa Fe Opera. ISBN 978-0-86534-550-8.
• Jarman, Douglas (1989). Alban Berg, Wozzeck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521284813.
• Jarman, Douglas (1991). Alban Berg: Lulu. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521284806.
• Kaminski, Piotr (2004). Mille et un opéras. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 9782213600178.
  • Kaminski, Piotr (2014). Les 101 grands opéras. Paris: Fayard/Pluriel. ISBN 9782818504604. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
• Lee, Douglas (2002). Masterworks of 20th-Century Music: The Modern Repertory of the Symphony Orchestra. NY: Routledge. ISBN 9781136066900.
• London, John, ed. (2000). Theatre under the Nazis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719059919.
• Perle, George (1977). Twelve-tone tonality. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520033870.
• Perle, George (1995). The right notes: twenty-three selected essays on twentieth-century music. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press. ISBN 9780945193371.
• Pople, Anthony (1991). Berg: Violin Concerto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521399760.
• Steinweis, Alan E. (1996). Art, ideology, & economics in Nazi Germany: the Reich chambers of music, theater, and the visual arts. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807846070.
• Whittall, Arnold (2008). The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521863414.

Chapters, articles and theses

• Chadwick, Nicholas (1985). "Alban Berg and the BBC" (PDF). British Library Journal. 11: 46–59. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-20. Retrieved 2013-02-10.
• Dillon, Patrick (August 2012). "The Performance I Can't Forget". Opera News. 77 (2). Metropolitan Opera Guild. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
• Goldsmith, Melissa Ursula Dawn (May 2002). Alban Berg's Filmic Music: Intentions and Extensions of the Film Music Interlude in the Opera Lulu (PDF) (Ph D thesis). Department of Music, Louisiana State University. Docket etd-0415102-11044. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
• Gordon, Peter V. (2015). "An Opera of Permanent Catastrophe, and of Hope". The Nation (3 December) (accessed 27 May 2020).
• Hailey, Christopher (2010a). Berg's Worlds. pp. 3–32., in Hailey (2010)
• Notley, Margaret (2010). 1934, Alban Berg, and the shadow of politics: documents of a troubled year. pp. 223–268., in Hailey (2010)
• Stuart, Charles (17 July 1953). "The Holland Festival: Lulu". The Spectator. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
• "Lulu". Opera News. 41 (21). Metropolitan Opera Guild. 2 April 1977.

Discography and recordings

• "Lulu – Die Günther Rennert-Inszenierung" (1968 Electrola recording information). Discogs. 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
• Alban Berg: Lulu (PDF) (Liner notes and English libretto). Chandos. 2006. 3130. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2015-11-18. Synopsis pp. 18–23; Libretto pp. 116–203
• Boulez, Pierre (1979). Lulu – The Second Opera. Griffiths, Paul (translator). pp. 28–33., in DGG (1979)
• Alban Berg: Lulu (Liner notes). Deutsche Grammophon. 1979. 0289 463 6172 6.
  • Berg, Alban (1979). "Lulu". DGG. Archived from the original (Audio tracks) on 20 November 2017. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
• "Berg: Lulu". Opus Arte. 2010. OABD7070D.

Other

• "Nederlandse première: Berg – Lulu". Opera Nederland (in Dutch). 29 May 2015. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
• "The Santa Fe Opera". 2015.
• "Lulu" (Libretto, two act version). Opernführer (in German). Retrieved 3 November 2015.
• "Lulu" (Libretto, three act version). Kareol (in German and Spanish). 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
• Lulu Suite: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Cooper, Michael (27 October 2015). "Soprano Marlis Petersen Is Saying Goodbye to Lulu". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
• "Alban Berg: Lulu". Vienna: Universal Edition AG. 2015. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
• "Alban Berg: Lulu Nov 5 – Dec 3". Metropolitan Opera. 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-11-20.
  • "Lulu" (PDF). Metropolitan Opera. 17 November 2015. Archived from the original (Program notes) on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-11-15.

Further reading

• Adorno, Theodor W.; Berg, Alban (2005) [1997]. Lonitz, Henri (ed.). Briefwechsel 1925–1935 [Correspondence 1925–1935]. Translated by Hoban, Wieland. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 9780745694962. Originally published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt.
• Barber, Charles (2011). Corresponding with Carlos: a biography of Carlos Kleiber. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810881433.
• Cerha, Friedrich. The Third act of Alban Berg's Lulu. Translated by Griffiths, Paul. pp. 33–35., in DGG (1979)
• Jarman, Douglas (1985) [1979]. The Music of Alban Berg (Revised ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520049543.
• Killy, Walther; Vierhaus, Rudolf, eds. (2005). Dictionary of German Biography. Volume 9: Schmidt-Theyer. München: K. G. Saur. ISBN 9783110966299.
• Ljubibratić, Vanja (2026). "Alban Berg's Operas According to Roland Barthes's Five Narrative Codes". Cambridge Opera Journal. 38: 23–45. doi:10.1017/S095458672610072X.
• MacDonald, Malcolm (2008). Schoenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198038405.
• Perle, George (1989). The Operas of Alban Berg: Vol 2 Lulu. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520066168.
• Santos, Silvio José dos (April 2004). "Ascription of Identity: The Bild Motif and the Character of Lulu". The Journal of Musicology. 21 (2): 267–308. doi:10.1525/jm.2004.21.2.267. S2CID 25805393.
• Santos, Silvio J. dos (2014). Narratives of identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 9781580464833.
• Simms, Bryan R. (2013) [1996]. Alban Berg (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9781135846749.
• Walton, Chris (2014). Lies and Epiphanies: Composers and their Inspiration from Wagner to Berg. Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 9781580464772.

External links

• Lulu: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Eilenberg, Armin H. (2010). "Lulu". Kultur Fibel (in German). Salzburger Festspiele. Archived from the original on 2 October 2019. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
• "An Opera of Permanent Catastrophe, and of Hope" by Peter E. Gordon, The Nation, 3 December 2015
• "Lulu discography". Operone (in German). Archived from the original on 2011-06-15. Retrieved 18 November 2015.
• Capon, Brian. "Lulu discography". CLOR. Retrieved 18 November 2015.