#wnolulu WNO didn’t make it to Bristol with their new production of Lulu, so I had to go to Cardiff. Judging by what I heard around me, quite a few others had crossed the Severn for the opening night. (I can’t remember when I was last at the opening night of a new production.)
As the reviews comment, there was a strong cast and fine playing from the WNO orchestra under Lothar Koenigs, built around beauty of sound. Perhaps where I sat the wind and brass came over slightly at the expense of the strings.
I don’t think I need to describe the general approach or look of the production as the reviews listed below can supply that. The glittery and sometimes colour-coded design was a strong contrast to the last production I saw at the ROH. Sequins are clearly the operatic fashion du jour, perhaps a frivolous reaction to an age of austerity. Many in the audience were clearly awe-struck by the set and the ingenious ways in which it could be adapted to suggest different locations. The production itself threw lots of concepts together (circus/menagerie/abbatoir/Schigolch as Wotan/bodies as furniture/umbrellas etc.), though they were not as much at odds with one another as they were in the WNO Don Giovanni (which also featured bodies as furniture). I was warned ‘If it’s by David Pountney, there will be umbrellas’, and there they were in the final scene (OK, so it is set in London!)
The cast included Mark Le Brocq (whom I used to sing with in Cambridge) and the WNO regular Peter Hoare, who correctly made Alwa come over as a bit of a plonker – if it’s Berg’s self-portrait, it’s not a very flattering one.
A controversial aspect of the production was the use of Kloke’s recent completion of Act 3, which includes some optional cuts. The first scene of Act 3 – a condensation of an entire act in the original plays – has always seemed unsatisfactory to me, and, whatever the impact on the complex symmetries embedded in the score, I felt it was improved in dramatic terms by being trimmed.
Now, are people healthier in Wales, is it the acoustic of the WMC or the concentration induced by the music? Why do audiences in Bath and the Albert Hall cough and splutter through concerts even in the summer, yet I heard next to no coughing through a 3-hour performance in February?
Catch a broadcast on May 25th on BBC Radio 3. And let’s hope a revival of this production makes it to the Bristol Hippodrome.
Reviews: