Alban Berg’s first opera Wozzeck, written between 1914 and 1922 before premiering in 1925, is generally regarded as the first opera to be produced in the twentieth century avant-garde style. It represents one of the most famous examples of atonality and also features some Sprechstimme, an expressionist vocal technique that sits between singing and speaking. The story is based on Georg Büchner’s play Woyzeck, which was left incomplete when he died in 1837. From the...

Composer George Benjamin affirmed that the performances in Barcelona of Lessons in Love and Violence were a moving and “heroic” act. This was during the press conference for the presentation of the artists which he attended via video call. It was certainly the case. With half of Europe having their theatres closed, facing the Spanish première of such a difficult piece was quite a challenge, which Liceu undeniable overcame. It is worth remembering that Liceu had...

This autumn English National Opera is exploring the Orpheus myth by presenting four operatic takes on it. Now, following Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, both of which still have performances that can be seen, comes the third addition to the mix, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus. Without a doubt there is no other opera quite like it with the orchestra containing no strings, the score including electronic music (which was...

Lessons in Love and Violence is the third opera on which composer George Benjamin and librettist Martin Crimp have collaborated. They first enjoyed success together in 2006 with Into the Little Hill while Written on Skin, which premiered at the 2012 Aix-en-Provence Festival, has gone on to become the most widely performed opera of any to be written in the twenty-first century. Their latest creation represents a co-production between no less than six major opera houses, and is...

Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is something of an operatic oddity. It describes the establishing and subsequent implosion of a city that is designed to give people fun because, as its founders assert, there is nothing else in the world to rely on. Weill and librettist Bertolt Brecht were writing predominantly about the world they saw around them in 1930, but their depiction of Mahagonny, and by extension society in general, feel highly relevant today. They...