Wozzeck - Royal Opera

[JohnS]

I’ve been meaning to add a Wozzeck thread after seeing the General Rehearsal and it’s now some days since opening night. I’d mentioned that Wozzeck acted as something of a cold shower in moving from Cinderella to the second half of the Sleeping Beauty run. I could have been more explicit as the production starts with the curtain up on a military latrine with various soldiers going about their ‘ablutions’. I’m afraid I find all this a bit old hat, irritating and unnecessary - Berg and Buchner are bleak enough without the extraneous material. But there’s much to admire in the rest of the production, fabulous sets and curtain cloths. And Tony Pappano worked wonders with the singers led by Christian Gerhaher (Wozzeck), Anja Kampe (Marie), Peter Hoare (Captain) and Brindley Sherratt (Doctor) and the orchestra.
 

I haven’t seen all the Insight as yet but it struck me Tony Pappano might have let the music play rather more than he did: he pleaded he needed to give a 3 hour seminar where I thought he struggled to say much in the time he had.

 

I haven’t had chance to see Wozzeck in performance as yet but am toying with next week - last performance is 7 June. I think Wozzeck is being broadcast on Radio 3 on 24 June and I’ll certainly listen or catch up on BBC Sounds.

[Scheherezade]

I saw Wozzeck on opening night and absolutely agree with you, JohnS, regarding the quality of the performances. 
I also share your irritation at the military latrine at curtain up but I will say that overall I preferred the sets  to the previous production which, if I remember correctly, was set mostly, if not entirely, in what resembled an oppressively dirty, grey-tiled men’s urinal.
I really don’t get the ongoing compulsion to paint each and every tragic or unpleasant storyline with unremitting, here-we-go-again shades of grey and despite the wonderful performances and the odd flash of colour in this production, I did come out feeling the overwhelming need for a double dose of undemanding, extra-saccharine Disney to lift my mood. 

[Sebastian]

Many years ago I studied this opera as part of an undergraduate course. This insight into its mathematical secrets has not helped me grow close to what even those who like it find a bleak and exhaustingly demanding work, and some years back I gave up going to see it.

 

However it is only fair to point out that some people have a completely different relationship with the work. Here is a recent personal response to this ROH production by an online writer. That anyone can be sentimental about Wozzeck amazes me but this is clearly a sincerely held view:

 

https://boulezian.blogspot.com/2023/05/wozzeck-royal-opera-19-may-2022.html

[Lizbie1]

No exactly a laugh a minute, but it was well done.