Wozzeck

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935). It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. Since then it has established a solid place for itself in the mainstream opera tradition, and modern productions are consistently sold out. Though its musical style is challenging, the quality of Berg's work (in particular, the characteristation of the situation through clearly defined musical techniques) means that this is a modern opera that repays the timid listener. With a typical performance taking slightly over an hour and a half, it is nevertheless an intense experience. This is an opera that eschews all the stereotypes of an opera, being serious and compelling throughout. The subject matter - the inevitablity of hardship and exploitation for the poor - is brutal and uncompromisingly presented. While Berg's musical style is not as violent as some other composers might have written for this story, the style suits the subject matter.

History

Wozzeck is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Buchner's play (on 5th May, 1914), and knew at once that he wanted to write an opera on it. From the fragments of unordered scenes left by Büchner, Berg selected fifteen to form a compact structure of three acts with five scenes each. He adapted the libretto himself as he worked through the various scenes.

Though Berg began work on the opera in 1914, it was not until he was on leave from his regiment towards the end of World War I that he was able to devote his attention to it, completing the opera in April 1922. Erich Kleiber conducted the world premiere at the Berlin State Opera on December 14, 1925. It quickly became so well established in the repertoire of the major European opera houses that Berg found himself able to live a comfortable life off the royalties. He spent a good deal of his time through the 1920s and 30s travelling to attend performances and to give talks about the opera. At Berg's death, his fellow pupil Anton Webern noted in a letter to their teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, how tragic it was that the most renowned of their trio was the first to die. That fame had come predominantly from the success of this opera.

Musical Style

Wozzeck is one of the most famous examples of atonality (music which avoids establishing a key). Berg was following in the footsteps of his teacher by using free atonality to express emotions and even the thought processes of the characters on the stage. Not only was the expression of madness and alienation possible with the power of atonal music, the greater themes of love and humanity and the striving of ordinary people for dignity in the face of abuse and brutality with which Wozzeck struggles during the opera are marvellously portrayed in Berg's music. Such is Berg's skillful observation of real life that he is able to convey pictures of the ordinary (the scenes in a tavern - inside and outside Marie's room) or the mundane (the snoring soldiers in their barracks). For these sections he turned to the overall styles of popular folksong, using their rhythmic and melodic patterns without also adopting the harmonic implications.

Though the music is atonal in the sense that it does not follow the techniques of the major/minor tonality system dominant in the West during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, the piece is written with other methods for controlling pitch to direct the harmonic flow. The tritonal pair B natural and F natural, for example, represent Wozzeck and Marie, permanently in a struggle with one another. The combination of B flat and D flat represents the link between Marie and the child. In this way the opera continually returns to certain pitches to mark out key moments in the plot. This is not the same as a key centre, but over time the repetition of these pitches establishes continuity and structure.

Leitmotif

Berg uses a variety of musical techniques to create overall unity and coherence in the opera. The first is the use of leitmotif. As with most composers who have used this method, each leitmotif is used in a much more subtle manner than being directly attached to a character or object. Even so, motifs for the Captain, the Doctor and the Drum Major are very prominent. Wozzeck is clearly associated with two motifs, one often heard as he rushes on or off stage, the other more languid expresses his misery and helplessness in the face of the pressures he experiences. Marie is accompanied by motifs that express her sensuality, and the earrings she accepts from the Drum major (an act that indicates that her submission to the 'rape' at the end of act 1 was not so reluctant). A motif that is not explicitly linked with a physical object would be the pair of chords that are used to close each of the three acts, used in an oscillating repetition until they almost blur into one another.

The most significant motif is first heard sung by Wozzeck himself (in the first scene with the Captain), to the words 'Wir arme leut' (poor folk like us). Tracing out a minor chord with added sharpened seventh, it is frequently heard as the signal of the inability of the opera's characters to transcend their situation.

Beyond this, Berg also reuses motifs from set pieces heard earlier in the opera to give us an insight into the character's thoughts. So the reappearance of the military band music informs us that Marie is musing on the Drum major's physical desirability.

Classic Forms

Berg decided against the use of the classic operatic forms such as aria or trio for this opera. Instead, each scene is given its own inner coherence by the use of forms more normally associated with abstract instrumental music. The important second scene of act II (during which the Doctor and Captain taunt Wozzeck about Marie's infidelity), for instance, consists of a prelude and triple fugue. The fourth scene of act I, when we see Wozzeck with the Doctor, is a set of passacaglia variations. The various scenes of the third act move beyond these limitations and adopt novel stategies. Each scene is a set of variations, but where the term 'variation' normally indicates that there is a melody undergoing variation, Berg identifies different musical elements for 'variation'. Thus scene two is a variation on a single note (B natural, heard continuously in the scene, and the only note heard in the powerful orchestral crescendos at the end of the scene); scene three is a variation on a rhythmic pattern, with every major thematic element constructed around this pattern; scene four is a variation on a chord, used exclusively for the whole scene; the orchestral interule is a free composed interlude that is firmly grounded in the key of d minor; the final scene is a moto perpetuum, a 'variation on a single rhythm (the quaver).

Roles

		Premiere, December 14, 1925 (Erich Kleiber)
Wozzeck	baritone	Leo Schützendorf
Marie, his common-law wife	soprano	Sigrid Johanson
Marie's son	boy soprano
Captain	buffo tenor	Waldemar Henke
Doctor	buffo bass	Martin Abendroth
Drum Major	heldentenor	Fritz Soot
Andres, Wozzeck's friend	lyric tenor	Gerhard Witting
Margret, Marie's neighbor	contralto	Jessika Koettrik
First Apprentice	deep bass
Second Apprentice	high baritone
Madman	high tenor
Soldiers, apprentices, women, children

Synopsis

Act I

Scene 1 (Suite): Wozzeck is shaving the Captain who lectures him for living an immoral life. Wozzeck protests that it is difficult to be virtuous when he is poor.

Scene 2 (Rhapsody and Hunting Song): Wozzeck and Andres are cutting sticks as the sun is setting. Wozzeck has frightening visions and Andres tries unsuccessfully to calm him.

Scene 3 (March and Lullaby): A military parade is passing by outside Marie's room. Margret taunts Marie for flirting with the soldiers. Then Wozzeck comes by and tells Marie of the terrible visions he has had.

Scene 4 (Passacaglia): The Doctor scolds Wozzeck for not following his instructions regarding diet and behavior (which Wozzeck has been submitting to make extra money for Marie). However, when the Doctor hears of Wozzeck's mental aberrations, he is delighted and congratulates himself on the success of his experiment.

Scene 5 (Rondo): Marie admires the Drum-major outside her room. He makes an advance on her, to which she first resists but then gives in.

Act II

Scene 1 (Sonata-Allegro): Marie is telling her child to go to sleep while admiring earrings which the Drum-major gave her. She is startled when Wozzeck arrives and when he asks where she got the earrings, she says she found them. Though not convinced, Wozzeck gives her some money and leaves. Marie chastises herself for her behaviour.

Scene 2 (Fantasia and Fugue on 3 Themes): The Doctor rushes by the Captain in the street, who urges him to slow down. The Doctor then proceeds to scare the Captain by speculating what afflictions may strike him. When Wozzeck comes by, they insinuate that Marie is being unfaithful to him.

Scene 3 (Largo): Wozzeck confronts Marie, who does not deny his suspicions. Enraged, Wozzeck is about to hit her, when she stops him, saying even her father never dared lay a hand on her. Her statement 'better a knife in my belly than your hands on me' gives Wozzeck the idea for his response to this.

Scene 4 (Scherzo): Among a crowd, Wozzeck sees Marie dancing with the Drum-major. After a brief hunter's chorus, Andres asks Wozzeck why he is sitting by himself. An Apprentice delivers a drunken sermon, then an Idiot approaches Wozzeck and cries out that he smells blood.

Scene 5 (Rondo): In the barracks at night, Wozzeck, unable to sleep, is keeping Andres awake. The Drum-major comes in, intoxicated, and fights with Wozzeck.

Act III

Scene 1 (Invention on Themes and Variations): In her room at night, Marie reads to herself from the Bible. She cries out that she wants forgiveness.

Scene 2 (Invention on a Pedal-Point): Wozzeck and Marie are walking in the woods by a pond. Marie is anxious to leave, but Wozzeck restrains her. As a red moon rises, Wozzeck becomes determined that if he can't have Marie, no one else can, and he stabs her.

Scene 3 (Invention on a Rhythm): People are dancing in a tavern. Wozzeck enters, and upon seeing Margret, dances with her and pulls her onto his lap. He insults her, and then asks her to sing him a song. She sings, but then notices blood on his hand and elbow; everyone begins shouting at him, and Wozzeck, now agitated and obsessed with his blood, rushes out of the tavern.

Scene 4 (Invention on a 6-Note Chord): Having returned to the murder scene, Wozzeck becomes obsessed with the thought that the knife he killed Marie with will incriminate him, and throws it into the pond. When the blood-red moon appears again, he wades into the pond and drowns. The Captain and the Doctor, passing by, hear Wozzeck moaning and rush off in fright.

Intermezzo (Invention on a Key): This interlude leads to the finale.

Scene 5 (Invention on a Equal of 8ths quasi toccata): Next morning, children are playing in the sunshine. The news spreads that Marie's body has been found, and they all run off to see, except for Marie's little boy, who after an oblivious moment, follows after the others.

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