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Wozzeck (German pronunciation:) is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Composed between 1914 and 1922, it premiered in 1925. It is based on the drama Woyzeck, which German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's play on 5 May 1914, and knew at once that ...
Among the central meanings in Biichner's Woyzeck, there is one that comes clear only when we read the play in the context of the history. ideas-specifically in the light of certain currents of thought human history and eschatology. Aspects of the play's expression.
- Overview
- Background and context
- Cast and vocal parts
- Setting and story summary
- Act I
- Act II
- Act III
Wozzeck, opera in three acts by Austrian composer Alban Berg, who also wrote its German libretto, deriving the story from the unfinished play Woyzeck (the discrepancy in spelling was the result of a misreading of the manuscript) by Georg Büchner. The opera premiered in Berlin on December 14, 1925. Of all rule-breaking avant-garde operas, it is the ...
A dark story of madness and murder, Wozzeck is an adaptation of Büchner’s groundbreaking and highly influential work, which was in progress at the author’s death in 1837 and was not performed until 1913. After seeing the play’s Vienna premiere, Berg determined to base an opera on it, but his progress on the work was slowed by the advent of World War I and military service. He completed the opera in 1922 and published the vocal score privately in 1922. He presented orchestral excerpts from the opera in concert in 1924. When Berg’s work came to the stage at the Berlin Staatsoper a year later, it was an immediate hit. Its success dismayed Berg, who felt that the work should have been too modern for wide acceptance, and he began to question whether he had fallen short of his overall intention.
Berg tells the tale of Wozzeck’s madness with rhythmic and melodic fragments that carry moods from one scene to the next. As his mentor Arnold Schoenberg had taught him, Berg underlaid his music with compositional patterns going back hundreds of years. His harmonic structures sometimes verge into atonality, leaving the listener with no clear sense of the direction in which the music might move next. Atonality was an idea then in vogue among the Schoenberg circle, and it seemed ideally suited to reflect the protagonist’s precarious mental state and his descent into madness.
•Marie, Wozzeck’s common-law wife (soprano)
•Wozzeck, a soldier (baritone)
•the Drum Major (tenor)
•the Doctor (bass)
Wozzeck is set in a town near a military barracks during the first quarter of the 19th century.
The soldier Wozzeck and his captain debate morality. The Captain suggests that, because Wozzeck has an illegitimate child, Wozzeck is immoral. Wozzeck maintains that poor people cannot afford morality. Later, while cutting wood, he finds himself tormented by strange visions. Meanwhile, Marie—the mother of Wozzeck’s child—is watching a military band...
In Marie’s room, Wozzeck asks her about the new earrings she possesses. Unwilling to admit that they were a gift from the Drum Major, she says she found them, and only after Wozzeck’s departure she admits to herself that she feels guilt for the lie. The Captain and the Doctor interrupt their dark conversation to goad Wozzeck about Marie’s behaviour. Wozzeck confronts her, trying to force an admission of infidelity. When he sees her dancing with the Drum Major at the beer garden, he is overcome with rage. Later, the Drum Major mocks Wozzeck and beats him.
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Marie reads in the Bible about Mary Magdalene. Later, walking together by a pond, she and Wozzeck reminisce. When she tries to flee his fit of temper, he stabs her. Townspeople see the blood on his hands. He returns to the pond to hide his knife and wash his hands in the water. Passing nearby, the Captain and the Doctor hear him drown. Neighbour ch...
- Betsy Schwarm
Written in 1914-22. Premiere: Statsoper, Berlin, 1925. Libretto: Alban Berg based on Georg Buchner’s 1837 play, Woyzeck. Act 1. Wozzeck, a soldier, shaves the Captain, who lectures him on his moral failures. Wozzeck replies that "we poor folk" could be virtuous if only they were well-off "gentlemen".
Wozzeck is an opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885-1935). It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925 . Berg wrote this opera before the period when he used serialism in his works.
Wozzeck is shaving the Captain, who lectures him on the qualities of a “decent man” and taunts him for living an immoral life. Wozzeck slavishly replies, “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann” (“Yes sir, Captain”) repeatedly to the Captain’s abuse.
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When Written: 1836 Where Written: Zürich When Published: Edited version first published in periodicals between 1875 and 1877; first performed in 1913 Literary Period: Romantic Period; The Young Germany Movement Genre: Drama Setting: A provincial German town in the early nineteenth century
