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Directed by
Richard Jones
Conductor
Paul Daniel
(Anthony Legge
May 23)
Set Designer
Paul
Steinberg
Costume
Designer
Buki Shiff
Lighting
Designer
Pat Collins
Fight Director
Alison de Burgh
Translation
Richard Stokes
Lulu
Lisa Saffer
Dr Schön/
Jack The Ripper
Robert Hayward
Alwa
John
Graham-Hall
Schigolch
Gwynne Howell
Countess
Geschwitz
Susan Parry
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London
Coliseum
English
National Opera
New Israeli Opera Company
Stadtische Buhnen Frankfurt
am Main Oper Frankfurt
1 - 30 May 2002
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Lulu, Nelly,
Mignon, Eve, the Countess Adelaide:
these women are all one woman, and even
though the power of female sexuality
is enormous, and for a time brings her
wealth, adulation and success, the one
woman who is all these women has to
pay the price of what her body has bought
her – that price being degradation
as a common street prostitute, and death
by murder at the hands of a client.
On the way to this denouement she has
left a terrible detritus of destroyed
lives in her wake. Such is the story
of Lulu, painted in the dark, unremitting,
frightening colours of Alban Berg's
music.
The unfamiliarised
ear might begin by hearing Berg's music
as incoherent and arbitrary. But patterns
emerge, keying the characters; and the
emotional tonality of the score is perfectly
adjusted to the moral fragmentation
and eventual horror of the world Lulu
creates around her. Lisa Saffer, who
is beautiful and sexy, looks every inch
a Lulu, and sings the demanding part
with marvellous lucidity. But she has
been made to portray Lulu as a mincing,
flouncing, coquettish opportunist, whereas
the premise of the drama has to be that
Lulu possesses, and knows that she possesses,
a terrible power of seduction, which
remains even when she is reduced to
whoring in the streets of London. Somehow
the girlish Lulu of this production
is too lightweight for the miasma of
immorality she is supposed to spread.
A more restrained projection of animal
sexuality would suit both the part and
Lisa Saffer better. But given that Lulu
is on stage through almost all the drama
– and it is a long, hard part –
Lisa Saffer's robustness of throat and
consistency in character merit much
praise.
The flouncingness
of Lulu is the only fault of an otherwise
immensely imaginative and visually compelling
production. Paul Steinberg's set is
a feat not only of creativity but of
organisation, as it seems; it manifests
an over-bright yet arid modernism, perfectly
paralleling the corrupted cycles of
desire around Lulu, where everything
exists in overstatement and the underlying
note is one of hysteria. The transformation
of scenes was cleverly arranged, making
each one serve as a character in the
drama, and giving a clever visual echo
to the music.
There
are excellent performances by John Graham-Hall
as Alwa and Gwynne Howell as Schigolch.
Robert Poulton is convincing as the
unpleasant swaggering Acrobat, and Robert
Hayward makes an equally convincing
Dr Schön. Everyone appears in fine
voice, and the orchestra turns a difficult
score into gripping music.
This
is the first time Berg's Lulu has been
performed on the Coliseum's stage. It
was an adventurous decision, but amply
justified by the result.
AC Grayling |
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