Alban Berg only wrote two operas, but they turned the genre upside down, leaving a searing, unignorable legacy to his 20th-century successors. Wozzeck is the tragedy of a simple soldier broken and brutalised by an all-too-believable world. Lulu was left unfinished at Berg’s death in 1935, but its story of a woman living—and dying—through her own sensuality continues to grip and provoke. The German conductor Karl Böhm knew Berg, and these historic stereo recordings have a force and an authenticity that feels like he has a hotline to the composer’s subconscious. The singers, too, are exceptional, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau at the peak of his career and soprano Evelyn Lear as Lulu, a role that she created just eight years before this incomplete (but still shattering) recording.
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Other Versions
- 51 Songs
- 1984
- 1995
- 1964
- 1986
- David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & The Orchestra Of St. Luke's
- Anja Silja, Bernard Haitink, Jerry Hadley, Karita Mattila & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
- Alessandra Marc, Daniel Barenboim, Deborah Polaski, Johan Botha, Staatskapelle Berlin & Waltraud Meier
- Berlin Philharmonic, Chor der Deutschen Staatsoper Berlin & Daniel Barenboim
- Isabelle Faust, Orchestra Mozart & Claudio Abbado
- Helmut Deutsch & Jonas Kaufmann
- Les Arts Florissants & William Christie