A Painterly Production

Alban Berg's 'Lulu',
live in high definition
from Metropolitan Opera,
impresses MARIA NOCKIN

Viennese composer Alban Berg (1885-1935) began work on Lulu in 1928, three years after his first opera, Wozzeck, was performed in Berlin. He adapted the libretto from Frank Wedekind's plays: Erdgeist ('Earth Spirit') and Die Büchse der Pandora ('Pandora's Box'). The following year he interrupted the composition of Lulu to work on a concert aria but the Nazi cultural net began to close in on his work.