Programme booklet »Wozzeck«

ALBAN BERG

WOZZECK

CONTENTS

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SYNOPSIS P.

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A SHARP EYE ON SOCIAL REALITY INTERVIEW WITH SIMON STONE

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A PERFECT OPERA CHRISTIAN GERHAHER P.

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WOZZECK ISN’T A CIGARETTE OLIVER LÁNG

THERE IS A SILENCE IN THE WORLD ANNA MITGUTSCH

IMPRINT

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ALBAN BERG

WOZZECK OPERA in three acts (15 scenes) Text ALBAN BERG after GEORG BÜCHNER

ORCHESTRA 4 flutes, 4 oboes, 4 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 1 contrabass tuba, 2 pairs of timpani, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, rod, large tam-tam, small tam-tam, triangle, xylophone, celesta, harp, violin I, violin II, viola, cello, double bass STAGE ORCHESTRA several small drums; A military band: 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 contrabass tuba, percussion A wine tavern band: 2 fiddles, 1 clarinet, 1 accordion, 1 guitar, 1 bombardon or bass tuba; a small piano A chamber orchestra in the instrumentation of Arnold Schönberg’s Kammersymphonie: 1 flute (also piccolo), 1 oboe, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 1 bassoon, 1 contrabassoon, 2 horns and a solo string quintet

AUTOGRAPH Score: Library of Congress, Washington Short score: Department of Music at the Austrian National Library WORLD PREMIÈRE 14 DEC 1925 State Opera Unter den Linden, Berlin PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 30 MAR 1930 DURATION

1 H 30 M

NO INTERMISSION

WOZZECK

SYNOPSIS In order to provide adequate financial support for his girlfriend Marie and her little boy, Wozzeck takes on a number of odd jobs to earn additional income. For example, he regularly shaves the captain, cuts sticks, and makes himself available to the doctor for questionable medical experiments – such as a diet of beans and wether meat. Restless and hounded by tormenting delusions, he hustles from one job to the next, a constant target for the ridicule and sadism of the captain and doctor. His only anchor in life is his relationship with Marie. However, she is attracted to the handsome drum major, with whom she finally enters into a sexual relationship.

When Wozzeck discovers that she has a new pair of earrings, he starts to become suspicious. The obviously malicious insinuations made by the doctor and the captain make it clear to him that he has been deceived by Marie. He asks her about the matter, but Marie brusquely rebuffs Wozzeck. When he then sees her dancing in public with the drum major, who later even enthuses to Wozzeck about her physical merits, Wozzeck decides to murder Marie.

The next time he meets up outside with Marie, he carries out his plan and stabs Marie to death.

Shortly thereafter, when Margret and others discover blood on Wozzeck, he returns to the scene to find a better hiding place for the knife he had thrown away; he wades deeper and deeper into the water and drowns.

Marie’s little boy, teased by the other children, is left a complete orphan, still too young to understand what has happened.

Previous pages:

SCENE

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SARA JAKUBIAK as MARIE

JOHANNES MARTIN KRÄNZLE as WOZZECK

ANDREAS LÁNG IN AN INTERVIEW WITH SIMON STONE (DIRECTOR)

A SHARP EYE ON SOCIAL REALITY al

When one embarks on producing a stage work, it sometimes raises more questions than answers. What is the most significant question that you ask or have asked yourself about Wozzeck? st Because the dramaturgy of this opera, its action is presented so clearly and consistently, it’s more a matter of finding a way to outline and define the world that conditions Wozzeck’s life.

Due to Büchner’s extreme economy with stage directions – which Alban Berg hardly added to – the themes remain essentially universal. This is why I think it would be a shame to keep the story within the purely military environment that is suggested. Its thinking would be far too restrictive and narrow if all the repression, brutality, abuse and sadism described here were confined to the limits of a past, purely military environment. The fatal consequences that arise when individuals gain power over others

and demean them are omnipresent and can be transposed to every society. It is consistently true: if people are degraded into animals, then we should not be surprised if they regress to an atavistic, precivilised pattern of reactions. Often it is enough for poorer or weaker people to be forgotten or to be regarded as irrelevant to create monsters. It’s no coincidence that Wozzeck says in his conversation with the Captain in Scene One that he would lead a completely different life of moral integrity if he were not poor. Unfortunately, this work has remained just as timely since Büchner or Berg’s time, as despite all the political changes and efforts, to this day it has been impossible to close the gap between rich and poor.

Rather the opposite: in recent years it has increased again. al You have underlined that timeliness by locating the piece specifically in present-day Vienna. st It is always important to me to present each story to the audience in

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a familiar world that they feel is their own. In this case both Büchner and Berg made great efforts from the outset to depict contemporary reality. So in my eyes it would be wrong to obscure the work’s timeless significance by leaving it in a past that feels alien to us and which we can only experience in a limited way. al Is Wozzeck a teaching play, a social drama or is it more about compassion, not least compassion with the character of Wozzeck? st I would talk about it more as a documentary – we know that Büchner used real events that he then adapted in this work. The public are presented quite objectively with what can happen when victims are slighted and demeaned, what kind of psychic mechanisms can be triggered. al Do you see this documentary as an objective narrative, or do you present the story from the perspective of the characters involved? st It’s both. On one hand we describe the life of the underdog Wozzeck from the outside, his relationships with other people, his surroundings, his world – and in doing so we show that you could meet someone like this any time on the U-Bahn, at a Würstelstand or in the street. After murdering Marie, Wozzeck goes back into the bar and joins Margret as if nothing had happened. We’ve all seen stories in the media about people who kill someone and then leave the body lying around in their apartment for weeks. Such peculiar people do exist and who knows whether you didn’t just happen to walk past or sit down next to one of them. Presenting this aspect is very

important to us. On the other hand – drawing on the expressionist quality of Berg’s music that reflects Wozzeck’s inner life and mental state – we repeatedly change perspective and become part of the title character’s hallucinations. And this is how we illustrate what troubles Wozzeck internally in addition to the external circumstances and what they cause. al To what extent are the Captain and the Doctor fixed types and to what extent are they random people who unfortunately possess too much power and abuse it? st Maybe Büchner and Berg also wanted to say something about malevolent officials and professors of medicine. However, at the same time they portrayed these two characters in a particularly idiosyncratic way. It’s not like with Brecht, where a character fulfils a specific function, they’re much weirder: people who in some circumstances we would recognise from our own lives as cranks. al But not caricatures? st Not at all – caricatures are legible, they are distinguished by familiar, expected and exaggeratedly represented characteristics. But the Captain and the Doctor are entirely elusive and atypical, governed by the most contradictory emotions and qualities that come to light unexpectedly. al Through the murder of Marie, the topic of femicide that sadly remains as current now as it was then plays a central role in Wozzeck. st It addresses a very urgent set of themes here: how often do lawyers try to argue even now that the murder of a woman committed out of jealousy is

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SIMON STONE IN AN INTERVIEW

at least understandable if not actually partly excusable if she has been unfaithful to her partner. That anyone in the 21st century even dares articulate something like that says a great deal about certain ways of thinking, about supposedly wounded pride, lost honour, insecure identities and similar nonsense that were outmoded a long time ago and thought we had got rid of. There is no doubt that Wozzeck is a victim in many respects. But – and this is important – murdering Marie makes him a perpetrator, and that action cannot be blamed on his role as a victim! There are enough people in similar situations who nevertheless do not commit crimes of violence. An important lesson that is once again emphatically presented to us

by Büchner and Berg. That aside: since when has infidelity been a crime punishable by death? If that was the case, half the population here would probably have to die. Of course, Marie doesn’t treat Wozzeck well, of course she cheats on him with the Drum Major. But unlike the murder that Wozzeck commits, her position is really quite understandable: she is living together with a man who is cracking up completely, continually thinking and saying crazy stuff.

Dependent on him, she spends day after day at home on her own with a child who Wozzeck pays no attention to. She hopes she can escape this feeling of being imprisoned with no future and the Drum Major appears to offer a feasible way of doing so. Can Marie be blamed for wanting to be free and independent? al So Wozzeck misinterprets his relationship with Marie as a love that is reciprocated. st Taking your time and waiting for a partner who is the one you really love is a privilege of the sheltered social

classes. Of course there are genuine loving relationships in the precariat.

But if you don’t know how you’re going to pay for the heating or the rent at the end of the month, or whether you’ve got enough money to provide for your child’s needs, then you’ll take the first man who comes along who can offer some level of security and, sadly, you won’t leave him immediately if he gets violent. al At what point does Wozzeck first think of killing Marie – because we can’t and don’t want to deliberately assume it is a crime of passion? st I think this option exists in his subconscious very early on, probably right from the beginning. He is constantly obsessed with the idea of death, of mortality and annihilation; he talks about blood even before he confronts Marie with the knife. Wozzeck doesn’t seem to realise how much being denigrated and mocked by practically everyone the whole time affects him. We’re not looking at an Otello here who is only led astray by the machinations of someone like Jago: with Wozzeck there’s no turning point, no development. He is downtrodden and his soul is maimed from the outset. The explosion simply happens the moment he becomes fully aware of his situation.

This moment is purely coincidental and could just as easily have happened months earlier or later. But again: it is no excuse for what he does. This is why it is so important how we bring up children, what image we give them of the relationship between two people – and live out in front of them. al After Marie and Wozzeck are dead, their child is left behind as an orphan. Does this lay the

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tragic foundation for a new, future Wozzeck? st Well, one possible reading is that at the end of the opera the child is already being tormented by the others, and his humiliations are already starting at this early age. What we can definitely learn is: while we adults are concerned with our own problems, we often forget the children and do not no-

tice that we are dragging them into our problems. On the other hand: the child is young and it’s well known that hope is the last thing to die. What would be really alarming is if he had started developing more or less subtle aggressions by this stage. But there is no mention of that. His “Hopp-hopp” is more a sign of innocence.

The interview took place in 2022.

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Following pages: ANJA KAMPE as MARIE

CHRISTIAN GERHAHER as WOZZECK

ANNA MITGUTSCH

THERE IS A SILENCE IN THE WORLD Where silence infiltrates language it destabilises the secure ground of reality or, as Wozzeck sings in the second scene of Act One: “Hohl! Alles hohl! /…/ Ein Schlund! Es schwankt! Hörst Du, es wandert was mit uns da unten!” (Hollow! All hollow! /…/ A chasm! It’s quaking! Can you hear, something down there is following us!) Silence rips holes in the fabric that supports our interpretation of reality. Music by contrast has a different relationship with silence, one that is not dialectic but supplementary: it elevates language onto a different level of understanding, extends it and allows it to be heard in the silence.

It seems paradoxical that literature should love silent characters, the stammerers who struggle with language more than those who are articulate.

They let us see their deepest lows and show us their impotence when confronted by the insoluble riddles of existence. Büchner’s Woyzeck is a man of silences, someone who has difficulty with words and the thoughts that accompany them and who has a greater aware-

ness of the uncanny forces that remain hidden to others precisely because he trusts his feelings more than logic. In Woyzeck Büchner discovered a character who presents this kind of silence to us in compelling and disturbing form.

The more a writer leaves open and the more gaps he leaves for the reader, the more fragile the piece becomes and the more its interpretation leaves to chance.

Büchner left behind a highly reduced fragment whose intentions were clearly recognisable but in the version by Karl Emil Franzos that Alban Berg worked from, it became even more terse, even more reduced. This is what is so astonishing about the opera Wozzeck: that he gave us a Woyzeck as Büchner intended, a Wozzeck who knows more than he can understand, an anti-hero who responds to his social humiliation with nothing but uncomprehending obedience, who is driven mad by despair and whose rebellion consists of murdering the only person he loves. Yet despite this, we feel compassion for him and outrage on his behalf.

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Wozzeck is introduced as a subaltern who must accept judgements on his behaviour and his way of life just as obediently as he takes orders. He occupies the very bottom of the hierarchy: everyone is above him, everyone except Andres and Marie. He answers everything in a monotone, whether these are comments on the weather or on morality, with the words “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann” (Yes, Captain). The repeated staccato of the same note hammers home the puppet-like obedience of his response.

“Wozzeck!” – he is addressed like a military salute, the lash of a whip. Irrespective of whether it comes from the Captain, the Doctor or the Drum Major, the tone remains the same: aggressive, emphasising the last syllable. It communicates both command and humiliation, all in a single word that is also his name. However, Alban Berg is careful not to turn the piece into a social drama set in a specific time. Wozzeck exists in every society, in every system. Life is always determined by power. Whoever has power can argue about morality, they are allowed to define freedom and virtue, no matter what their limitations are, they can, as Wozzeck puts it, “vornehm reden” (talk politely) and “tugendhaft sein” (be virtuous). Power gives them language and language gives them power. Wozzeck stands outside power and its language.

He is someone whom life and society deprive of a voice and anything he takes from life remains outside the sphere of power and its protection because he has no entitlement of any kind. Wozzeck walks a tightrope between dumb fool and visionary, lover and violent criminal, victim of abuse and disturbing outsider. How easy it would be for such a character to lose his balance.

The music preserves his balance and gathers his qualities: his sixth sense for the incomprehensible, unnameable that holds mankind in its grasp and could destroy it at any time. “Wenn etwas ist und doch nicht ist. /…/ Ein Feuer!

Ein Feuer, das fährt von der Erde in den Himmel ... und ein Getös herunter wie Posaunen… Wie’s heranklirrt.”

(If something is and yet is not. /…/ A fire!

A fire that rises from the earth to heaven… and a din descending like trumpets. How it jangles.) The spoken melody of this and similar passages drags us inside his fear of what he senses but does not understand. We can feel it and ask ourselves: why is no one aware of it except him? It is inconsistent with the discourse of power, with the self-assurance of the Captain and the scientific mania of the Doctor. It is a counter-world from which Wozzeck’s visions emerge: eruptive, powerfully graphic, puzzling, reduced to the extreme. We do not ask whether Wozzeck has gone mad: the libretto and music do not permit this; the images of his frightened visions are too real to allow us to digress into psychological conjectures. Wozzeck’s fear of fate touches us.

It alerts us to Büchner’s question about predestination. Alban Berg’s loyalty to his hero does not allow us to distance ourselves from him in the way the Doctor does: “Er hat eine schöne fixe Idee, eine köstliche aberratio mentalis partialis.” (He has a lovely, fixed idea, a delightful partial mental aberration.)

Wozzeck is a prophet without a language, who takes his apocalyptic visions from the Bible when words fail him. We, on the other hand, can conjure up images from the reality of the twentieth century when we hear:

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ANNA MITGUTSCH

“Und sieh, es ging der Rauch auf vom Land, wie ein Rauch vom Ofen” (And look, smoke rose above the land, like smoke from an oven). Alban Berg’s opera was premiered in 1925. By then, the horrors of the century had already dispatched its first harbingers. But everything in this piece has more than one point of reference. What Wozzeck sees is not only a distant apocalypse that threatens humankind: it is his animal fear of an uncertain fate projected onto a cosmic canvas. Interior and exterior are one: the drama of a suffering soul tears reality down into its abyss. It is the inkling of someone who cannot determine where his next step leads and as a result can sense just how easily his world can be destroyed.

In the third scene of Act One, when Wozzeck is alone with Marie and a military march is intertwined with a lullaby, their fear of what threatens them brings them closer than their love. Love is there, but quietly: it is easily drowned out. “Wir arme Leut” (we poor people), this cry repeated like a leitmotif unites them. And their dread of what is about to befall them. Marie and the child are his world, they lie beyond the power that demeans him. To keep this world intact Wozzeck sells himself to the Doctor and his experiments: “denn das Menagegeld kriegt das Weib: darum tu ich’s ja.” (because the woman gets the ration money: that’s why I’m doing it) Marie is his sole thought while the Doctor is torturing him with dietary experiments.

What does someone with no rights have left apart from selling themselves?

Marie also sells herself for two earrings. And Wozzeck reassures her: “’s ist gut, Marie! ’s ist gut!” (it’s alright, Marie!

It’s alright!) and then: “Wir arme Leut.”

(We poor people). And after that, still

caring for her, in the intimate tone of the man providing for his wife and child: “Da ist wieder Geld, Marie, die Löhnung und was vom Hauptmann und vom Doktor.” (There’s more money, Marie, my pay and something from the Captain and the Doctor). Is this the speech of a man raving with jealousy?

Or someone whose mind has been shattered by visions? Wozzeck’s language may come in outbursts and at times seem incoherent, he may find it hard with his uneducated brain to penetrate the mystery that controls his life and is going to destroy it. But his emotional life is more nuanced than those of all the other characters, including that of Marie. He is subservient in his soldierly obedience, but he knows how to defend himself when he refutes the Captain’s idea of virtue and the Doctor’s theory of free will. He tries to communicate his existential fear and to protect his small family – which does not belong to him because nothing belongs to him, not even himself. He may be uneducated and his speech may be inhibited, but he wants to understand what it is that threatens him and makes him a victim.

Is he responsible for his deed?

Would he have had to take the knife and murder Marie if he had had other means at his disposal; power, language, the ability and the right to defend his interests? He stands there, mute and earnest, when he is being mocked. He sits mute on the edge of the dancefloor while Marie dances with the Drum Major. The words he uses to confront Marie with her infidelity are not an accusation but tormented, self-tormenting cries: “Da! Hat er gestanden /…/ so, so? /…/ Teufel! Hat er da gestanden? /…/ Ich hab ihn gesehen. /…/ Du – bei ihm! /…/ Mensch!” (There! He stood /…/ like this,

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like this? /…/ The devil! Did he stand there? /…/ I saw him. /…/ You – with him! /…/ Man!) And after the Drum Major has humiliated him and confirmed Marie’s infidelity, he can only find a single line within him: “Einer nach dem Andern!”

(One after another!) a line that remains open to multiple possible interpretations: has one man after another been with Marie? or has he been hit by one destructive blow after another? or will there be one murder after another?

“Muss fort” (Must go), /…/ “immer zu, immer zu” (on and on, on and on), the knife, the blood. The play is based on single words and images. Alban Berg also relies on the effect of these leitmotifs. The arc of the tragedy stretches from “Still, alles still, als wäre die Welt tot” (Silent, all silent, as if the world were dead) in the second scene of Act One to “Still! Alles tot” (Silent! All dead) at the end of Act Three after the murder. In their economy the words become charged, obsessions condense in these words shouted out in torment that become obsessive codes, leitmotifs that establish an internal connection.

Büchner does not explain what we ought to think of Woyzeck, he does not comment on Marie’s murder with the bourgeois moral terms he rejects in his caricatures of the Captain and the Doctor. Wozzeck’s actions require no explanation. The music helps us to understand the character from his consciousness when we hear what has been left unspoken, the pauses between the lines, the unspoken sentences between the words, seemingly left over from a mute monologue and falling into silence with a double weight. What happens to Wozzeck is too overwhelming to put into words. Who is capable of finding an appropriate language for the destruc-

tion of their world, in the very moment that it is happening?

There is no doubt that Wozzeck is a murderer. He is the first to say it: “Mörder! Mörder! Ha! Da ruft’s. Nein, ich selbst” (Murderer! Murderer! Ha! There’s a shout. No, it’s me) and the one who passes judgement on himself by drowning himself in the blood that he has shed: “Aber ich muß mich waschen.

Ich bin blutig. Da ein Fleck – und noch einer. Weh! Weh! Ich wasche mich mit Blut – das Wasser ist Blut… Blut.” (But I must wash myself. I am bloody. There’s a spot – and another one. Woe! Woe! I wash myself in blood – the water is blood… blood.) But Wozzeck is also a figure reminiscent of Job: a human being forced, degraded into the most extreme abandonment, who has had everything taken away from him and who may be mocked because at the same time every possibility of obtaining his due has been taken from him.

His sorrows go far beyond social injustice, and his revenge is not that of the cuckolded lover but a human being’s response to the contents of his life being destroyed. “Herr Hauptmann, ich bin ein armer Teufel! Hab sonst nichts auf dieser Welt!” (Captain, I am a poor devil! I’ve nothing else in this world!) he pleads when the Captain unsettles this world by alluding to Marie’s infidelity.

Whether it is the circumstances of his life, fate, a cruel God, or as Büchner calls it, “the grisly fatalism of history”, this is the element that turns the historical case of murder into a tragedy.

However, the opera does not end with murder and suicide. The last scene returns to Marie and Wozzeck’s child, to the children playing who go off to look for Marie’s dead body. Marie’s child rides after them on a hobbyhorse and

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has the last word with a bright “Hopp, hopp! Hopp, hopp! Hopp, hopp!” (Gee up, gee up! Gee up, gee up!) It is a harrowing image, more unsettling than the violent death of his parents. Is this the beginning of a new cycle of abandonment and social cruelty with the jeering gang of children running to look at the corpse and the orphaned child left on his own, not yet understanding his fate and lacking speech? In Büchner’s play the child appears for the last time before Marie’s murder: Woyzeck leaves his son

in the care of Karl, who has remained behind.

In his Wozzeck lecture (1929) Alban Berg says of the final scene: “From a dramatic point of view it is to be construed as the “epilogue” that follows Wozzeck’s suicide, as an admission by the author that steps out of the theatre’s plot-related action, yes, as an appeal to the audience that also represents humanity.” An appeal to society that could not be more reproachful or rousing.

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SEAN PANIKKAR as DRUM MAJOR

CHRISTIAN GERHAHER

A PERFECT OPERA With any piece of vocal music which is not directly liturgical, there is the fundamental question of how far the original text has been diminished in the process of setting it. There is no such injustice here: in this regard, I would describe Wozzeck as a perfect example of a literary opera (conventional libretti are written to be set), because the composer very largely respected Büchner’s text, there are no radical cuts, and overall the text of the setting has remained extremely close to the dramatic fragment Woyzeck, particularly in the brevity and compression of meaning urgently needed for an opera.

This is due, naturally, to the original, which demonstrated a phenomenal density of meaning in its verbal expression: each and every phrase is a uniquely striking individual element, beautiful in its awareness, witty. Occasionally, there is just so much packed into individual words – for example, the Captain’s “Whew!” in Act II in itself constitutes for me a superb and captivating sentence! And Berg has further intensified this meaningfulness acoustically through his music, and perhaps even outrun it.

As a consequence, Wozzeck – with its rich brevity, depth of meaning and at the same time formal musical completeness – is simply the perfect opera, and is, despite the darkness and tragedy of the material, a unique delight to the spirit. Whatever piece – performance or rehearsal – I may be coming from, every encounter with Wozzeck brings an incomparable sense of fulfilment, inner relaxation. The combination of the meaningfulness of Büchner’s sentences (not a single unnecessary word) and the sensuality of Berg’s music (not a single unnecessary note) takes me every time to a pinnacle in the history of music theatre (the only restriction to this praise could be that Alban Berg had as yet no access to a full edition, so that some scenes could not be set, and also made a few modifications to the text for reasons of taste).

One important question is how far Berg’s notation for the vocal parts, which is very firm but at the same time immensely difficult to understand – there are claimed to be over 60 (!) different forms of notation – has to be implemented one-for-one, and if it is even consistent to the last detail. The timbre

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of the average operatic vocal production at the end of the 19th century probably left something to be desired in terms of its declamatory range, and an attempt was made to counter this with colouristic diversity, not least by Schönberg and his student Berg, but also, for example, in Humperdinck’s Königskinder, which was first set as a pure declamatory opera.

At the latest after the turn of the century, there was a sense of need for a more varied approach to the vocal line, possibly involving less than total accuracy of pitch. This may also be the intent of Berg’s instruction to sing the intervals correctly but (where indicated) not to worry about the exact pitches. On the other hand, as Heinz Holliger often assured me (and firmly enough for me to simply pass it on) that for Berg, as perhaps the greatest tonal designer of the 20th century, no note would have been fortuitous or even excessive, and that each sequence of notes had its very own meaning in the overall structure. As a result, it is just not possible that this lucid and concise web of sounds could justifiably include pitches dependent on the passing inspiration and mood of a performer.

Wozzeck is the story of a man who is the victim and inferior of everyone in every way. He is hierarchically inferior to the Captain, socially and intellectually inferior to the Doctor. He is inferior to Marie, sexually, and generally as a partner. He allows himself to be bullied by the first two and abused for dubious medical purposes, as he needs money to feed his family. And as a constantly dominated individual who is obviously regarded as unattractive or at least incompatible, he is blatantly spurned by Marie. The relationship between the

two is clearly a total disaster. When you see the bed they share in our production, you can hardly imagine that the inhibited and ashamed Wozzeck could ever lie there beside Marie. Rushing from pillar to post, when the man does return home, he will rather settle in an armchair to sleep briefly, before returning to his erratic life. But this way of life as a flight from his solution, in fear of the breakdown of the illusion of an apparently financially, socially, sexually and amorously orderly existence, itself increasingly runs into trouble in the form of the decreasing options for maintaining it.

The Doctor subjects him to a diet of beans with numerous side-effects (hyperuricemia, hallucinations) which becomes increasingly unbearable (“pissed in the street like a dog”), the Captain’s narcissistic sadism (“Oh, he’s stupid, unbearably stupid”) becomes increasingly intolerable, and finally there is the Drum Major, who humiliates him mentally and physically … The decisive factor, however, is Marie’s blatant affair with the Drum Major as a consequence of marrying below herself, which in turn is the result of her socially precarious situation (first dialogue with Margret).

Why does Wozzeck keep up this non-relationship for so long? Perhaps he is looking for a substitute meaning of life. He never knows how to deal with the present, his current situation, but handing over the money he’s just earned could be a satisfactory daily goal (above a C major chord lasting for several bars) – a substitute for a life without the opportunity for development. A relationship with other women would be hardly any different for him, he would be the infe-

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rior in any partnership. If he didn’t die after murdering Marie (I see this as an accident, not suicide), who knows if he might have developed into a Jack the Ripper? His “Margret, you’re so hot … just wait, you’ll grow cold too!” in the second tavern scene does hint at this.

In any case, what Wozzeck increasingly obviously lacks in the face of his growing challenges is a real prospect that frees him from his wretched circumstances. He does have a plausible ambition, a drive for personal development that could give him hope of social improvement, and an accompanying boost to his self-esteem, as we see repeatedly in the course of the action.

In all the encounters with the Captain and his philosophical pontificating, and the self-satisfied, megalomaniac and unscrupulous Doctor, Wozzeck tries to absorb everything he hears and incorporate it in his vocabulary (bible quotes and genteel attributes in the scene with the Captain, use of complicated terms in the scene with the Doctor – “nature”, “character”, “structure”). But because his origins and education gave him nothing to work with, these enigmatic terms naturally remain intellectually inaccessible, and ultimately unusable. The fear of Freemasons he displays in his madness is also ultimately only an expression of fear of something unknown, undefinable, which he picked up somehow without being able to associate anything substantial with it or even make it out.

Wozzeck’s experimentally induced madness: Büchner, himself a doctor, witnessed experiments to see if beans can replace meat (the field study is associated with Justus Liebig, although not authentically). To reduce the cost of feeding soldiers, complete replacement

of animal protein with vegetable protein was considered, so that test subjects were only given pea soup and bean soup for weeks. This one-sided diet resulted in syndromes which are characteristic of Wozzeck (increased need to urinate, visual and auditory hallucinations).

This makes it clear that Wozzeck’s health is obviously hugely determined by his social situation, financial dependence and origins. This may also help decide a disputed point in the text of the opera: where the original says in the Doctor scene “I saw it, Wozzeck, he pissed again!”, Berg says at this point “… he coughed again” – one of the textual modifications I referred to above. In terms of content, it would be legitimate (and is now almost standard practice) to return to Büchner’s version. However, Berg decided otherwise for aesthetic reasons, and an aesthetic background is one of the decisive factors in having made this such an incomparable work.

A question which actually does not need to be settled, at least in principle.

How far the characters surrounding Wozzeck should also be seen as victims of circumstances or to what extent they should be held guilty is a matter of interpretation. Büchner’s well-known radical attitudes, critical of society and the ruling classes, naturally provides a suitable framework for interpretation.

The roles can also be seen as characters originating in the Commedia dell’arte. The Captain is the counterpart of Il Capitano, Marie is Columbina, the Doctor is Il Dottore, Andres is the optimistic side of Arlecchino and Wozzeck the darker side. In addition, the audience is repeatedly addressed, as if deliberately. This characterization is broken down in the four short scenes between Wozzeck and Marie, in which a diverse

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A PERFECT OPERA

psychological constellation is developed (despite the usual compressed form), culminating finally in the murder as the only remaining option.

The child occupies an interesting position between Marie and Wozzeck.

There is no apparent emotional tie between the child and Wozzeck, which makes the audience’s empathy with the orphan all the greater and more disturbing. Is Wozzeck his father at all? In their first dialogue, when he replies to Marie’s “Franz, your son …” with “My son, my son … I must go now”, we interpret this as raising the question. Perhaps he’s concerned that the child is not his.

Perhaps the child is only his stepson?

This is suggested in the final dialogue: “Do you remember, Marie, how long we’ve known each other?” – “It’s three

years at Whitsun”. The boy seems older than this, and hastily rushing in as the breadwinner could be the only reason why Wozzeck was able to become involved with a woman so much above him.

What a prospect, being with someone for such a paltry reason! It mirrors the prospect which this work confronts you with right from the start: hopelessness which can only end in the way it does. But compared to many other works of film, fiction or theatre, what a delight it is when the Captain rouses himself to lighten the darkness with such wonderful words as: “Wozzeck, I shudder to think that the world turns in just one day. That’s why I can’t bear the sight of a mill wheel!”

Following pages: DMITRY BELOSSELSKIY as DOCTOR

CHRISTIAN GERHAHER as WOZZECK JÖRG SCHNEIDER as CAPTAIN

ALBAN BERG TO HIS FUTURE WIFE HELENE NAHOWSKI

“Oh!! I wish that those who are so incredibly clever and moral might one day, at the Last Judgement – and that will come for everyone, though many simply do not know or feel it – – that when they come to claim their share of the soul, that they might be served gargle water and enema syringes and compresses and Priesnitz bandages, for that

is their kingdom of heaven, for with these they have run their swinish affairs in earthly life and gladly dispensed with spiritual extravagances, laughing at them only with mocking stupidity!

Yes, yes: I can say it calmly, but I would rather shout it out with a thousand voices: I hate people – all of them – all of them –!!”

OLIVER LÁNG

WOZZECK ISN’T A CIGARETTE THE BIRTH OF THE OPERA Someone entering the Kammerspiele in Rotenturmstrasse in Vienna’s first district today might not suspect that they are treading on musical history. It was here in 1914 that Alban Berg saw a performance of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck with Albert Steinrück in the title role.

Berg was so impressed by what he had seen that he immediately thought of setting the piece, as he wrote to his friend and colleague Anton Webern years later: “I had such an incredible impression that I immediately decided (even after hearing it for the second time) to set it to music. It’s not just the fate of these poor people who are exploited and tormented by everybody that moves me, so much as the incredible mood of the individual scenes.”

Their joint teacher, Arnold Schönberg, was less convinced of the idea of a composition, feeling that it was “impossible to make something good of it”. But although he was occasionally shaken by Schönberg, Berg held to the idea with astonishing consistency.

Today, we know that what the young composer saw at what was known then as the Residenzbühne was

far from the “real” Büchner. Büchner had left only fragments of Woyzeck, without a set sequence of scenes, and partly in differing layers and versions.

The author Emil Franzos arranged, changed and published the piece in what he felt was the appropriate shape.

A further revision by Paul Landau resulted in the text that Berg used as the basis for his libretto.

The son of a medical doctor, Büchner was a doctor of philosophy and the sciences who was equally interested in the scientific and social aspects of the world around him. As a representative of revolutionary ideas (see the example of his writings on page 80 below), he was wanted by the police and had to flee. As a result, his Woyzeck should be read as both a social protest and a treatment of scientific issues which were hotly debated at the time. The 1837 dramatic fragment is based on at least three different criminal cases, all centred on the murder of a lover.

In 1817 the journeyman tobacco processor Daniel Schmolling was the perpetrator, in 1821 it was the source of the title, Johann Christian Woyzeck, and

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WOZZECK ISN’T A CIGARETTE

in 1830 the journeyman linen weaver Johann Diess; at least one other similar case is suspected. Georg Büchner took individual aspects of the cases, not seeking historical truth or documentary narrative, but rather questions of the competency, psychological disposition and social and political environment of the perpetrators.

Johann Christian Woyzeck’s crime was the best known of the cases at the time. He was a former soldier who had fallen on hard times, was alienated from society and tormented by hallucinations, and killed his lover of many years out of jealousy, stabbing her seven times. The deed was followed by an unusually long trial which centred on the question whether Woyzeck was legally responsible or not. According to Woyzeck, voices had driven him to commit the murder.

Ultimately, several expert opinions confirmed his competency, and with it his guilt. He was executed three years after the deed, on 27 August, 1724, although the case was never completely settled. There were repeated claims that the expert opinions finding him legally responsible were not objective, and that the experts wanted to force his execution. The accusation was that it had less been an honest evaluation of a condition than the desire to make an example as a deterrent, and impose the most severe punishment possible on someone distasteful to “polite society”.

In Büchner’s piece, the focus shifted from the deed to the psychological and ultimately social analysis. His early death prevented him from completing the play.

Parts of the text appeared for the first time some 40 years later, in 1875 (misspelt as Wozzeck) in the Neue Freie

Presse, followed by an edition of what was assumed to be his complete works.

For this, Karl Emil Franzos had produced a version of the drama from the different (and hard to read) drafts which accorded with the 19th century concept of a complete, linear drama. This “complete” version is nothing more than a construction, which was also dominated by Franzos’s dramaturgical tastes.

Franzos described the process of compilation as follows: “I endeavoured to arrange the two elements, the grotesque and the tragic, so that the second element was not overshadowed in its effect by the first.” He was certainly ready to add elements to the action arbitrarily, such as Wozzeck’s death or suicide.

While subsequently severely criticized for his high-handed approach, we must give Franzos credit for recognizing the importance of the text and making the effort to present it to the broadest possible audience in a form which he felt would have public appeal. Another aspect is that even Büchner’s brother ignored Woyzeck in 1850 in the course of producing an edition of the complete works.

Another edition of the text by Paul Landau, based on Franzos’s work, followed in 1909, which particularly involved rearranging the scenes. The piece was premièred in this version in Munich in 1913, and Alban Berg used this as the basis for his libretto.

Although Berg decided to set the piece in 1914 directly after seeing the play, and noted some initial ideas in the same year, the gestation of the opera was relatively long. Berg chose scenes from the play for the libretto, which he wrote himself, and rearranged and shortened them. “The work on the text (…)

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OLIVER LÁNG

and the musical concept essentially proceeded simultaneously. The music was not written for a specific text, but the text was incorporated into the plan for the composition. It is evident that Berg’s intent was not to distort or weaken the design, content and force of language of the work,” according to musicologist Ernst Hilmar.

After considering abandoning the project (Schönberg’s influence!), Berg returned to work on it in the summer of 1918, although numerous other obligations stopped him from making rapid progress. Even so, as he wrote to Webern, “I constantly feel the warmth when I’m writing the music, and it’s easier for me than I thought it would be after such a long break.” And: “Admittedly, I often feel worried about the work as a whole, the feasibility of the plan to bring together the multitude of small scenes in a few acts.” He takes leave when he can, works intensively, at least in the summer months, while complaining about the slow progress and his “tendency to pedantry”.

In truth, the “pedantry” is nothing more than punctilious accuracy: for example, Berg went to the instrument maker Josef Leopold Pick in Vienna’s seventh district to study the sound and the technique of playing the accordion (for the tavern scene). Berg’s constant asthma worsened, and he had to go to a sanatorium twice in the autumn of 1920.

In 1921 the short score (which basically shows the whole composition, although the parts are not fully written out) was completed, and Berg showed the work to his teacher, Schönberg, who was enthusiastic, as he told the director of Universal Edition in a letter: “I have always taken it for granted that Berg

would create something talented, but doubted that he would put something together that was really suitable for the theatre. And now this is the great surprise. This is an opera!! A real piece of theatre music!” In 1922 the orchestral score, which Berg dedicated to his patroness Alma Mahler, was also finalized.

Several institutions quickly showed interest in the work, including the Wiener Volksoper, and there were also enquiries from Munich and Hamburg, although nothing came of these. Before the whole work was premièred, parts of the opera were performed in Frankfurt in 1924 under Hermann Scherchen, to great success. Berg was talked of everywhere, and other cities and venues (such as the Wiener Konzerthaus) subsequently performed the so-called Fragments from Wozzeck.

The actual world première finally took place on 14 December 1925 at the Berlin State Opera under its general music director Erich Kleiber: Leo Schützendorf sang the title role, Sigrid Johanson sang Marie, and it was produced by Franz Ludwig Hörth. The posters, like the orchestral score, showed the title as not just Wozzeck but Georg Büchner’s Wozzeck. Many critics were positive, even if individual reviewers felt overwhelmed by the challenge.

After the Berlin première, the great journalist and cultural historian Oscar Bie wrote euphorically in the Berliner Börsencourier: “The main thing is that the creation is skilful, secure and masterful; this is no experiment, but artistic mastery, serious conviction, an impressive piece. The artistry of the score is extraordinary. The sound is accomplished, the suggestion completed, the tension builds, the instruments speak,

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WOZZECK ISN’T A CIGARETTE

their struggles are an experience, their clustering and separation a spiritual process.”

A year later the opera was successfully performed in Prague (in Czech), followed among others by major successes in St. Petersburg (1927), Oldenburg and Essen (1929), Vienna, Düsseldorf, Lübeck, Königsberg, Cologne, Gera (1930), Brunswick, Darmstadt, Philadelphia, New York, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Zurich (1931), Brussels, Brno, and Mannheim (1932). A reduced instrumentation of Wozzeck was produced for smaller theatres.

There were Austrian cigarette brands named after operas, Jonny (after Ernst Křenek’s Jonny strikes up), and Heliane (after Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The miracle of Heliane), and Alban Berg wanted to add a Wozzeck cigarette (“really cheap, the cheapest popular cigarette”), but the tobacco industry rejected the idea. Even so, Wozzeck was one of the greatest successes of its time.

The Nazis put a brutal end to this: like many others, Berg’s opera was banished from the repertoire, and the composer died in 1935, too early to experience its triumphant return.

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CHRISTIAN GERHAHER as WOZZECK

IMPRINT ALBAN BERG

WOZZECK SEASON 2025/26 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 21 MARCH 2022 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Cover image concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All articles are taken from the programme of the Vienna State Opera (première on 21 March 2022). IMAGE REFERENCES Cover image: © Monica Bonvicini, The Beauty You Offer Under the Electric Light, 2016. White lacqueur on bronze, 10,8 x 6,2 x 2,2 cm, ed. 5/5 + 2AP, Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Krinzinger, © Bildrecht, Wien 2022. Performance photos: Michael Pöhn/Wiener Staatsoper. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Andrew Smith, David Tushingham (There is a Silence in the World and A Sharp Eye on Social Reality).

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

produced according to guideline Uz24 Austrian Ecolabel, Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH, UW No. 715

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