New: Alban Berg’s LULU at An Abandoned Train Station
West Edge Opera’s Music Director, Jonathan Khuner, has close family ties to the music of Alban Berg. Jonathan’s father was a string player who launched an international career when he performed in the première of Berg’s Lyric Suite Quartet in Germany in 1927. Later, Jonathan says he debated with his father over the respective merits of Berg’s two operas, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937). Judging from the passion for Lulu showed by Jonathan Khuner in bringing this difficult opera to West Edge Opera, I think he clearly prefers Lulu to Wozzeck.
This is a preference I wholeheartedly share. I have now seen Lulu five times, and it never fails to make a positive impression. Wozzeck, on the other hand, can drive me up the wall, as it did in a Vienna Staatsoper production I saw in Berlin in 1987. Since that time, I have assiduously avoided Wozzeck. However, when West Edge Opera scheduled Berg’s Lulu for performance in an abandoned train station in Oakland, I made sure to attend the opening night show, on Saturday, July 25. I was not disappointed.
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