Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Wozzeck at Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
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| Baritone Simon Keenlyside sang Wozzeck at Lincoln Center. |
On Monday night, Esa-Pekka Salonen led a concert performance of Alban Berg's
Wozzeck, f
eaturing the Philharmonia Orchestra and Simon Keenlyside in the title role. Although played in a concert setting, the singers eschewed music stands, playing out the drama in front of the orchestra in a narrow, claustrophobic acting space along the lip of the stage in Avery Fisher Hall.
Berg's opera is a study in contrasts. To set
Woyzeck, the sprawling, chaotic play by Georg Büchner that is the opera's source material, the composer relied on an absolute, rigid use of forms. The first act is composed as a suite, with each short scene forming a dance movement of sorts. The second is a miniature symphony of despair. For the work's apocalyptic last act Berg created a series of "Inventions," with each scene based on a different type of musical element.
This rigorous approach paved the way for twelve-tone composition and the serialism that followed, but each piece of math music has its own radiant inner beauty. Mr. Salonen conducted a burly reading of the score that highlighted the chamber-like details and witty parodies that lie buried in this brilliant work. Compressing the three acts into a tight 95 minutes, he drove the performance with deadly precision, allowing the luminous moments in the score their own chances to shine.
Mr. Keenlyside, fresh from his run as Prospero in the Met's new production of
The Tempest lay down his staff for Wozzeck's knife, inhabiting the soldier's madness for a harrowing three acts. Indeed, his Wozzeck seems unbalanced from the first few moments, jittering and twitching in the fields with Andreas, and barely interacting wih Marie and their child, here played by empty air.
