Liceu Does Wozzeck: Bieito Gets it Right!

It's the day after, and I'm still reeling from watching Bad Boy Bieito's production of Wozzeck from the Liceu. This release, will - to be sure - anger as many as it will entice, but rarely - if ever - have I seen an opera updated to better effect with the resulting music drama as perfect as a stage work can get.

This production - as typical with this director - has divided audiences probably more than any other work he's done. While many of the ideas I've heard for his productions of Seraglio, Butterfly, etc., have repulsed me and seem like cheap effects for shock value, watching this Wozzeck was like watching something new. Somehow - and with a minimum of conceited directorial shoehorning, Berg's masterpiece fits this new scenario as though there were no other way to perform it. The score's otherworldliness matches the visual components given here in a futuristic, almost sci-fi manner that feels perfectly natural. It's astonishing, really.

Bieito's cast is uniformly strong - top-to-bottom. Franz Hawalta's title character not only embodies the awkwardness of Berg's anti-hero, he embraces it, convincing one he may be the only sane and still human person in this tale. Where Alan Held last year destroyed me by his pitiable Wozzeck who felt like an outsider in an unusually cruel world, Hawalta's Wozzeck is an outsider - someone hanging on to the last vestiges of his humanity in a post-apocalyptic world where there is no hope.

The stage design is simply mindboggling (well, not so"simply"). An endless labyrinth of pipes and pipe heads, becomes here, the belly of the beast, so to speak. While steam, liquids, gunk and filth pour out almost as if breathing as it fills the stage, there is somehow, as improbable as this setting is, also beauty.

The Wozzecks seem to live in an enormous corrugated metal container, or box car which descends from the flies.  Its harsh, inhuman florescent lights wash out nearly all color and hope. But, when we witness the home's first descent onto the stage, there is Wozzeck . . . watering a small green garden amidst this nightmare.  The imagery, the symbolic nurturing of his garden in this hopeless place was so beautiful, so meaningful as to nearly stop my heart and couldn't stop my hand from reaching up to it. It is an image I will never forget.

Nearly everyone in the cast is in identical orange, work jumpsuits, everyone covered in grime, women with hair clipped short, Wozzeck and Marie's child, a sickly, bald, bruised waif, forced to wear an oxygen mask at all times, the tank strapped to his weak, failing back. It is a heartbreaking vision.  Their child is onstage for much of the opera, his symbolism cannot be missed, yet never once does Bieito feel like he's forcing anything on us. Nor does it feel in any sense false. The Doctor, Drum Major, Captain and Fool are the only characters given different costumes, for obvious and well thought out theatrical reasons.

Ms. Denoke does not go for the sympathy vote with her unique take on Marie. This Marie is a feisty, slightly opportunistic factory worker: a little cold, a little less thoughtful and refined in her thinking and thus a little less pitiable. The bible-reading scene then becomes the embodiment of Marie's great catharsis; a dramatic realization which becomes, here, an epiphany of the horror of her plight; everything, has been made, for the first time, irretractably real. Wozzeck, lies there at the beginning of the scene, having been brutally beaten, and humiliated. This simple thing completely changes the trajectory of this moment from every other production I know. Marie jumps from the house, clutching her oversized bible, and begins tearing it violently - wildly - to shreds, before seeing Wozzeck's bloody, broken body which has been there the entire time. Another stunning moment of powerful theatricality.

Being a Bieito production, of course there is nudity, but his use of it here is restrained. Most of nudity is of the corpses which the Doctor dissects, and seems far too interested in both carnally and clinically. The most incredible use of it occurs in one of the most arresting and disturbingly beautiful images Bieito conjurs up, when during the final interlude nearly the entire company appears entirely nude. Slowly - walking in barely discernable steps, they approach the apron, as disinfectant . . . showers of purification rains down upon them. The effect completely overwhelmed me and thinking of it as I write, am shaking my head in near disbelief. It is not a provocative or sexual image, but the beauty of it - the perfect matching to the music's mood feels haunted by genius.

Everything about this Wozzeck is new, alarming and ultimately powerful. Wozzeck's early interactions with Andres have a naturalness about them convinces these once were good friends. It was a joy to see David Kuebler, a singer I've always liked, giving such a strong presence to an almost thankless role.

Reiner Goldberg - a singer I've always been divided on (and who has got to be getting on in years) is marvelous as the Drum Major in his Elvisy-glitz and gold hair.

Vivian Tierney as Margret, Johann Tilli as the Doctor, and the diminutive Hubert Delamboye as the Captain all offer well thought out and vivid portrayals of these roles.

No Wozzeck, of course, cannot work without the score being as well played and sung as possible and German maestro, Sebastian Weigle, seems to have spent his life with this score. The delicacy of certain sections are as beautiful and illuminating as any performance or recording I've heard. He emphasizes as well as the best, the dance rhythms of Berg's amazingly diverse score. As delicate and chamberlike as some of the score is, the moments of bombast are, here, as devastating as they can ever be. Combined with the images of Bieito's dazzling and harrowing production, the effect is as total - and new - as a Wozzeck can be. The playing and singing from the Liceu forces really is about as good as it gets.

The sound engineering of this product is astonishing, at the right volume level, everything is caught as cleanly and as clearly as one would experience in a great opera house (though, necessarily and, of course, without that live spatiality).

There is an interesting 18 minute documentary offering insights into Wozzeck, including Bieito's take on the story, and Maestro Weigle's pocketbook analysis of the score.

This DVD jumps to the top of my favorites pile and I look forward to being destroyed on many repeated viewings