I made my first post-pandemic excursion to the Royal Opera House to the opening night of Deborah Warner’s new production of Wozzeck.
I shan’t comment further on the uniformly excellent performances – you can read more by following the links below or if you read this in time by listening to the Radio 3 relay of a performance. Except to single out John Findon who made the small single-line role of the Fool especially chilling.
From time to time use was made of a revolving stage. Sometimes this is just a gimmick, but here it seemed to emphasise the images of circularity and dizziness which permeate the text. There is little scenery, but one striking image is the row of leafless trees – reminiscent of the trunks on World War I battlefields – suspended at the rear of the stage.
I didn’t have a particularly good seat, being right at the back of the stalls under the balcony. Unfortunately I had a rather fidgety tall person a couple of rows in front, which meant that effort that could have been expended on the music went on working out which side of his head gave me the best view of the stage. By contrast, directly behind me and leaning above my head on a padded railing were kindred spirits who had bought standing tickets in order to be there; I was not aware of them in the slightest during the performance.
It got universally enthusiastic reviews: