# What Is Your Opinion Of 'Lulu'?



## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

Alban Berg's "Lulu" is an opera that if you admit to not being overwhelmed by its artistry will get you terminally scorned by the high art cognoscenti as a middle brow, or worse a Neanderthal. It's fashionable to overpraise it because the average operagoer won’t particularly care for it. It’s a fascinating piece that is kept alive because musicians really like it for technical reasons that have nothing to do with its appeal to an audience. After four different (good) productions to date, and many earnest “listens,” over many years I frankly still don’t respond to the score. 

My limitation, I know.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Well, it makes me want to shout. Sorry... wrong Lulu!

To answer your question, whilst I believe _Wozzeck_ to be Berg's masterpiece - arguably the finest opera of the 20th Century - _Lulu_ runs it a close second. The music is often visceral and uncompromising, but then so is the action on stage; especially the "visceral" bit 

Have you seen the Glyndebourne production on DVD/Blu-ray? That might win you over a little.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I don't care for this opera. It might be a masterpiece but it's not to my taste. Difficult on the ears I find it. So do most people judging by the turn out for the recent broadcast from the Met, or so I hear.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

OP: Love it.
*********


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Musically fascinating, no doubt, but the story, the characters, and the score all leave me pretty cold. Of Berg's operas, I find _Wozzeck_ more concise, more entertaining, and more moving.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

We get into discussions like this all the time.

For example, we have had many members who do not get Verdi or Wagner, so what?

As far as what average opera goer likes, I really can not answer that question. The best response I can give is anecdotal. Most of the non-musician opera lovers I know like it. I even know a few musician types who hate it. Again so what?

In response to your "Alban Berg's "Lulu" is an opera that if you admit to not being overwhelmed by its artistry will get you terminally scorned by the high art cognoscenti as a middle brow, or worse a Neanderthal", most of us here are not like that. We are sick of getting accused of thumbing our noses at people who dislike music we care for.

As far as making one like _Lulu_? If a person hates _Lulu_ I seriously doubt that I can change their minds within the context of this forum.

I am an amateur musician and I have been the member of many volunteer music groups. I have also served on the boards which administer these groups. What upsets me about discussions like this is that they remind me of some of the arguments I have had with board members who tried to prevent us from programing works they did not like because only elitist musicians like to play them.

I remember one orchestra that I played with that fired the director because he would occasionally program modern music. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/31317-rant-horrible-music-composers-9.html#post639571

We recently had an incident with one group I performed with when some members tried to get us not to play the Hindemith _Symphony in Bb_ for band. I remember Dave yelling at me that real people do not listen to music like this. We are not talking about Boulez or Cage. This is Hindemith, one of the most conservative composers of the 20th Century. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/35299-do-you-care-how.html?highlight=hindemith#post773830

I personally have no problem with people who hate _Lulu_. I do not think that my esthetics are superior to theirs. I do have problems with people who think that the opera should never be staged.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I like the work but my limitations mean I can only go so far with it. I sometimes wish I was a musicologist so I could engage with its complexities on a far deeper level because _Lulu_ strikes me as being a work with so much going on beneath the surface, as if it's one gigantic musical puzzle where its myriad secrets can only be ferreted out by code-breakers worthy of Bletchley Park.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I've loved Lulu from the first time I heard it. It's such a rich, beautiful score that despite the ugliness of the underlying plot I can't help but be swept up in its whirlpool of emotion every time I listen to or watch it. There's a good deal of dark humor in the plot that I feel some overlook in favor of the seedier or more shocking aspects.

The suite makes for great listening as well, and it's a fine way to get to know the recurring themes.

I wouldn't scorn anyone for not liking it, though I am annoyed if someone calls it "tuneless" or "unlikable" or any such thing, because it's just not true. The same goes for the idea that musicians like it for "technical" reasons. Everyone I've heard talk about it loves the opera for its dramatic effectiveness and the lush opulence and lyricism of the score. There are some fascinating technical aspects, sure, but that's not why anyone cares about the work.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I've loved Lulu from the first time I heard it. It's such a rich, beautiful score that despite the ugliness of the underlying plot I can't help but be swept up in its whirlpool of emotion every time I listen to or watch it. There's a good deal of dark humor in the plot that I feel some overlook in favor of the seedier or more shocking aspects.
> 
> The suite makes for great listening as well, and it's a fine way to get to know the recurring themes.
> 
> I wouldn't scorn anyone for not liking it, though I am annoyed if someone calls it "tuneless" or "unlikable" or any such thing, because it's just not true. The same goes for the idea that musicians like it for "technical" reasons. Everyone I've heard talk about it loves the opera for its dramatic effectiveness and the lush opulence and lyricism of the score. There are some fascinating technical aspects, sure, but that's not why anyone cares about the work.


When I hear people talk about it with the enthusiasm you do, I really wish I could like it more. I've really tried, but I find its musical language doesn't get through to me. My failing, I'm sure.

It sometimes concerns me that, now almost 100 years since they were around, I still find the New Viennese School difficult. I recently bought the Karajan box of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, expecting to like nothing but Schoenberg's _Verklaerte Nacht_ and found myself enjoying a lot more of the set than I imagned. However it's still not a set I return to that often.

Maybe I should try more/harder, but there is only so much time vouchsafed to us in this world.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

I love _Lulu_, and though its atonality may sound ugly at first, I find it to be some of the most expressive music there is. Berg makes a point that while beautiful music is enjoyable, at times, when stories are as dramatic and dirty as _Lulu_ is, it is important that we put aside convention to fully display the drama. And the ironic thing is that I will occasionally have parts of it stuck in my head! It's almost if he wrote memorable "tunes", despite its complete lack of sense to our ears, musically.
I am not able to compare it to _Wozzeck_ , as I have not seen the latter, but judging by what the other forum members have to say, it is certainly something I would like to check out.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ma7730 said:


> I love _Lulu_, and *though its atonality may sound ugly at first, I find it to be some of the most expressive music there is. Berg makes a point that while beautiful music is enjoyable, at times, when stories are as dramatic and dirty as Lulu is, it is important that we put aside convention to fully display the drama.* And the ironic thing is that I will occasionally have parts of it stuck in my head! It's almost if he wrote memorable "tunes", despite its complete lack of sense to our ears, musically.
> I am not able to compare it to _Wozzeck_ , as I have not seen the latter, but judging by what the other forum members have to say, it is certainly something I would like to check out.


That's just the problem for some of us. The music _is_ highly expressive (some of it anyway), but when music is precisely expressive of such heartless, morally obtuse - if not sociopathic - characters and their sordid doings, it expresses things some people can't enjoy contemplating for three hours. I can't _feel_ for these empty people, or care what they do or what becomes of them, and the music hardly suggests that in their vacant bosoms beat hearts of gold! If I'm going to have any of this opera, I'd rather not watch it and hear it sung, but simply listen to what Berg excerpted for his Lulu Suite.

_Wozzeck_ also gives us some sordidness, but there the pathos of the lives of people who are forgotten and abused and crack under the strain engulfs me and seems to lend the whole work a deeper humanity. The music expresses this powerfully by moving from stark atonality into a more tonal, Romantic idiom toward its denouement, and I'm moved in a way I can't be by Lulu's senseless ugliness.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> _Wozzeck_ also gives us some sordidness, but there the pathos of the lives of people who are forgotten and abused and crack under the strain engulfs me and seems to lend the whole work a deeper humanity. The music expresses this powerfully by moving from stark atonality into a more tonal, Romantic idiom toward its denouement, and I'm moved in a way I can't be by Lulu's senseless ugliness.


Wozzeck is an amazing work. As an aside, Berg's opera was my gateway to Georg Büchner, who has remained a favorite writer since I discovered him.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I do like Wozzeck. Saw it twice at the Met and have a recording in my collection.

As for Lulu, I find it effective in getting rid of obnoxious solicitors banging on my door and noisy gardeners.

Exposing young juvenile offenders to this music for three minutes would make 'em all angels.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I may have posted this before, but it is apropos...


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

The synopsis sounds interesting, but I don't think I could manage Berg's music yet. I heard forty minutes of Wozzeck once and found it completely unlistenable. Goodness knows how or indeed why anyone sings it. I'm most happy to be considered middlebrow, though Neanderthal is probably rather harsh. 

If only music with Berg's level of intellectual credibility sounded as good as this:






*sighs*


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

As a staged work I think it could be quite powerful with strong leads BUT I could never listen to it's unattractive music for more than 5 minutes on the radio. I say this even though I love some of Berg's songs a lot. They play it often on Sirius and I always say, "Give me Verdi or Wagner NOW."


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> That's just the problem for some of us. The music _is_ highly expressive (some of it anyway), but when music is precisely expressive of such heartless, morally obtuse - if not sociopathic - characters and their sordid doings, it expresses things some people can't enjoy contemplating for three hours. I can't _feel_ for these empty people, or care what they do or what becomes of them, and the music hardly suggests that in their vacant bosoms beat hearts of gold! If I'm going to have any of this opera, I'd rather not watch it and hear it sung, but simply listen to what Berg excerpted for his Lulu Suite.


Interesting. While I (luckily) cannot directly relate to the characters of Lulu, I just find it amazing as a study in extremes. Obviously, they are not the most caring of characters, but they are still fascinating and make for a story I actually find oddly resonant. They all act on the two fundamental traits of humans: desire for sex and fear of death. Of course, we as a modern society are able to control these inclinations (most of us), but I find it interesting to think what the inability to control ourselves, to give ourselves over to immediate pleasure, and submit to possible later dissatisfaction would lead to. Because, every day we are given a choice of immediate sensual pleasure, or long-term prosperity. _Lulu_ is an opera about people making all the wrong decisions.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

ma7730 said:


> Interesting. While I (luckily) cannot directly relate to the characters of Lulu, I just find it amazing as a study in extremes. Obviously, they are not the most caring of characters, but they are still fascinating and make for a story I actually find oddly resonant. *They all act on the two fundamental traits of humans: desire for sex and fear of death.* Of course, we as a modern society are able to control these inclinations (most of us), but I find it interesting to think what the inability to control ourselves, to give ourselves over to immediate pleasure, and submit to possible later dissatisfaction would lead to. Because, every day we are given a choice of immediate sensual pleasure, or long-term prosperity. *Lulu is an opera about people making all the wrong decisions.*


No argument there! However, there are many reasons why we make the wrong decisions. Some of those reasons are more admirable, or at least less reprehensible or regrettable, than others, and reveal differences in character. To me the decisions people make are less interesting than the underlying character the decisions reveal. Interesting that you consider the desire for sex and the fear of death the two _fundamental_ traits of humans. That sounds awfully "Freudian" (which I put in quotes because I don't know to what extent he actually believed that). I should think the desire for happiness, love, and a sense of personal identity, and the need to understand things and make sense of life, are no less, if not more, fundamental. We embark upon the quest for those things long before a desire for sex and an awareness of death become concerns, and to let sex and death come to dominate our lives is a sign of failure to realize our human potential, not of concern with something "fundamental."


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I got into Lulu the moment I heard it. I was still a rather wild 'kid' in my early 20s. An opera by a member of the Neue Wiener Schule that I revered and the novelty of such a loony plot made it a shoe-in. I have never tired of it and I can honestly say that, were it not for this opera, I would not likely have taken to Wagner at an equally early age and would likely not have developed my still tentative taste for opera to the extent I have. Lulu was the gateway.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> I may have posted this before, but it is apropos...


Anyone who can say with a straight face that the character of Lulu is "everything I could hope to be" is either deeply confused, rationalizing madly, or a sociopath. Since Hannigan has not been reported to have swindled or poisoned anyone, I'm willing to rule out the third of those.

Artists always need to find, or invent, reasons to justify their interest in the roles they play. Her real reasons for finding Lulu attractive we may never know; she may not fully know them herself. Maybe it's just an extreme case of "feminist" assertiveness - a need to identify herself as a "strong woman" - or an identification with a woman who is not inhibited by normal fears (which Hannigan claims she feels) or intimidated by a male-dominated world (which Hannigan also feels the need to mention here). But Lulu is plainly both the victim and the victimizer of stupid, lustful, predatory men (which appear to be about the only kinds there are in this opera). The fact that she's "true to herself" says nothing about what sort of self she's true to. Jack the Ripper was true to himself too - but no one considers him admirable.

Hannigan really doesn't attempt to justify her view of Lulu. Knowing the story of the opera - watching Lulu's willingness to flirt with everyone without a shred of conscience, and her ice-cold reactions to the deaths of all the fools she's involved with - I can't take Hannigan's starry-eyed heroine-worship seriously.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

I honestly don't care much about the story and characters in opera. So many great operas have poor libretti, I won't say what I think of Wagner's libretti (oops, already mentioned it!) But most of the time I just listen to opera CDs and don't read about the plot until after I've had my first listen, sometimes after several. Following both the drama and the music can be difficult for a first listening (and subsequent) of a work.

BTW I love Lulu (and Wozzeck too, can't really tell which one I prefer), can't read music and started to listen to opera less than 3 years ago. I'm not boasting but showing that it's not a work for musicians or "high art cognoscenti", although I'd think they (???) do hold it in high regard, as they do works like Tristan und Isolde and Otello.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Lulu is a singspiel to be seen , and once in a while in the right mood I do listen to it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

GregMitchell said:


> When I hear people talk about it with the enthusiasm you do, I really wish I could like it more. I've really tried, but I find its musical language doesn't get through to me. *My failing, I'm sure.*
> 
> It sometimes concerns me that, now almost 100 years since they were around, I still find the New Viennese School difficult. I recently bought the Karajan box of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, expecting to like nothing but Schoenberg's _Verklaerte Nacht_ and found myself enjoying a lot more of the set than I imagned. However it's still not a set I return to that often.
> 
> Maybe I should try more/harder, but there is only so much time vouchsafed to us in this world.


A couple of people have excused themselves by saying this. Why? It's not our failing if a guy writes stuff we find unpleasing. Opera is an entertainment which is supposed to give people pleasure not an evening they find difficult to sit through. So if a guy writes an opera that we don't like then don't feel guilty about it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Anyone who can say with a straight face that the character of Lulu is "everything I could hope to be" is either deeply confused, rationalizing madly, or a sociopath. Since Hannigan has not been reported to have swindled or poisoned anyone, I'm willing to rule out the third of those.
> 
> Artists always need to find, or invent, reasons to justify their interest in the roles they play. Her real reasons for finding Lulu attractive we may never know; she may not fully know them herself. Maybe it's just an extreme case of "feminist" assertiveness - a need to identify herself as a "strong woman" - or an identification with a woman who is not inhibited by normal fears (which Hannigan claims she feels) or intimidated by a male-dominated world (which Hannigan also feels the need to mention here). But Lulu is plainly both the victim and the victimizer of stupid, lustful, predatory men (which appear to be about the only kinds there are in this opera). The fact that she's "true to herself" says nothing about what sort of self she's true to. Jack the Ripper was true to himself too - but no one considers him admirable.
> 
> Hannigan really doesn't attempt to justify her view of Lulu. Knowing the story of the opera - watching Lulu's willingness to flirt with everyone without a shred of conscience, and her ice-cold reactions to the deaths of all the fools she's involved with - *I can't take Hannigan's starry-eyed heroine-worship seriously.*


I agree with Woodduck. I just can't understand an artist offering platitudes like this. I mean, what woman would want to live the life Lulu lived. How many of us would want our daughters to live that sort of life so she could be 'true to herself'? I'm sure if a man tried to justify the actions of the psychopathic Don Giovanni Mozart wrote about he would be howled down by feminists. Yet feminists (for some reason) want to make a heroine out of this woman.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I felll in love with "Lulu" not at the opera house, but at the cinema. Many years ago, watching G. W. Pabst's _Die Büchse der Pandora_, with an amazing Louise Brooks starring as Lulu. 

Later, I also fell in love with Berg's opera, that is one of by all-time favorites.

I'm well aware that some people don't like "Lulu". And that's fine. It's their limitation as some say, but not in a derogatory sense. Simply, it's not their cup of tea. Maybe this will change with time, maybe not.

True, "Lulu" is not an opera for the faint-hearted. It's a travel into a devastating landscape. Lucid, like 'staring into the abyss, knowing full well the abyss is also staring into you'. The music is modern, terribly modern. When recent 12-tone-like operas, like "Brokeback Mountain" sounds like music from yesteryear, a masterpiece like "Lulu" sounds as fresh, as new, as when it was written, back in the 1930s.

I have watched "Lulu" staged several times, as well as listening to some CD recordings, and DVDs. Always the same fascinating experience. Hell, the only thing I do regret is that Louise Brooks was not able to sing opera.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

schigolch said:


> I felll in love with "Lulu" not at the opera house, but at the cinema. Many years ago, watching G. W. Pabst's _Die Büchse der Pandora_, with an amazing Louise Brooks starring as Lulu.
> 
> Later, I also fell in love with Berg's opera, that is one of by all-time favorites.
> 
> ...


Nop it's the limitation of the opera's appeal that it is liked only by a relative few.


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## Gironabalie (Jan 13, 2016)

DavidA said:


> Nop it's the limitation of the opera's appeal that it is liked only by a relative few.


A work such as Berg's _Lulu_ takes great preparation to appreciate: one simply does not walk into it and respond as one would to a Mozart opera. One must study the libretto and listen to the piece _many_ times over before one is really capable of appreciating it. Serious music demands a great deal of the listener.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Nop it's the limitation of the opera's appeal that it is liked only by a relative few.


Would you say that it's the failing of Mozart's operas for not having the appeal of pop music?

Berg has the ability to be as popular as Wagner, at the least. His operas have grabbed audiences from the very first time they were heard, in spite of the uncomprehending reviews of the critics.

What would have to happen, though, is that people would have to grow up with his musical idiom, as we have with Wagner's, so it's no longer completely alien. Our popular music has headed away from chromaticism towards simplicity, though, and for some inexplicable reason the word atonal is still in our vocabulary, so that seems unlikely.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

I'll take Lulu over La Bohème any day of the week.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Gironabalie said:


> A work such as Berg's _Lulu_ takes great preparation to appreciate: one simply does not walk into it and respond as one would to a Mozart opera. One must study the libretto and listen to the piece _many_ times over before one is really capable of appreciating it. *Serious music demands a great deal of the listener*.


Oh no! Are you saying Mozart is not serious music? The greatest operas ever written?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Couac Addict said:


> I'll take Lulu over La Bohème any day of the week.


Other way round for me!


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## Gironabalie (Jan 13, 2016)

DavidA said:


> Oh no! Are you saying Mozart is not serious music?


Of course not.

What I am saying is that if we really have any hopes for the maintenance of this culture, we must expect the intelligent, sensitive individual to be not only aware, but deeply involved in the most demanding aspects of art. Demanding art ultimately delivers because it renews; it is a continuously renewing experience.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Would you say that it's the failing of Mozart's operas for not having the appeal of pop music?
> 
> Berg has the ability to be as popular as Wagner, at the least. His operas have grabbed audiences from the very first time they were heard, in spite of the uncomprehending reviews of the critics.
> 
> What would have to happen, though, is that people would have to grow up with his musical idiom, as we have with Wagner's, so it's no longer completely alien. Our popular music has headed away from chromaticism towards simplicity, though, and for some inexplicable reason the word atonal is still in our vocabulary, so that seems unlikely.


I cannot see what Mozart and pop music have to do with the limited appeal of Lulu to classical music fans. And the usual that lack of appreciation for Berg is other people's fault. I'm not interested in whose fault it is. The question was what is your opinion of it. My opinion is I don't care for it!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Gironabalie said:


> Of course not.
> 
> What I am saying is that if we really have any hopes for the maintenance of this culture, we must expect the intelligent, sensitive individual to be not only aware, but deeply involved in the most demanding aspects of art. Demanding art ultimately delivers because it renews; it is a continuously renewing experience.


So you are saying that those of us who like Mozart but don't appreciate Lulu are not sensitive and intelligent?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DavidA said:


> I cannot see what Mozart and pop music have to do with the limited appeal of Lulu to classical music fans. And the usual that lack of appreciation for Berg is other people's fault. I'm not interested in whose fault it is. The question was what is your opinion of it. My opinion is I don't care for it!


My point was that if you think that limited appeal is a mark of some deficiency, why confine your argument to "classical music fans"? That's the very definition of special pleading.

Also, as I said, it doesn't lack in potential to appeal to audiences.

And we all know your opinion. You've mentioned it every single time the topic comes up. Why do you care so much that others know that you don't like Lulu?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> My point was that if you think that limited appeal is a mark of some deficiency, why confine your argument to "classical music fans"? That's the very definition of special pleading.
> 
> Also, as I said, it doesn't lack in potential to appeal to audiences.
> 
> And we all know your opinion. You've mentioned it every single time the topic comes up. Why do you care so much that others know that you don't like Lulu?


What I said was we mustn't beat ourselves around the head about not liking it. I'm sure pop music fans don't go around with guilt trips because they don't like Mozart or Beethoven!

I certainly feel the sheer difficulty of the music will limit its appeal to audiences.

I could reply as you say the same thing every time the topic comes up, why do you care so much that others know you do like Lulu? Actually I thought this was a forum where people gave their opinions to the question asked by the OP and then we discussed the answers. I gave mine and you gave yours. And we have discussed it and disagreed. No problem with me.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DavidA said:


> What I said was we mustn't beat ourselves around the head about not liking it. I'm sure pop music fans don't go around with guilt trips because they don't like Mozart or Beethoven!
> 
> I certainly feel the sheer difficulty of the music will limit its appeal to audiences.
> 
> I could reply as you say the same thing every time the topic comes up, why do you care so much that others know you do like Lulu? Actually I thought this was a forum where people gave their opinions to the question asked by the OP and then we discussed the answers. I gave mine and you gave yours. And we have discussed it and disagreed. No problem with me.


Beethoven is also difficult. Wagner is very difficult for some, in much the same ways as Berg.

But difficulty is not primarily something in the work of art itself; it is a manifestation of an individual's reaction to it. In other words, some may find Berg less difficult than, say, Rameau or Monteverdi because the more archaic idiom isn't as communicative to them.

I know that Berg has potential to find a wide audience. I also know that our musical culture is not yet acclimated to total chromaticism to the point where that is possible.

I'm not telling anyone they have to feel bad for not liking it, or that they should like it, I'm saying that those of us who love it love it because it is beautiful to us, despite what some may say.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Gironabalie said:


> A work such as Berg's _Lulu_ takes great preparation to appreciate: one simply does not walk into it and respond as one would to a Mozart opera. One must study the libretto and listen to the piece _many_ times over before one is really capable of appreciating it. Serious music demands a great deal of the listener.


Up to a point - I've only heard it twice but both times I thought it was a magnificent piece of work. I agree that it is very intense and it takes a lot out of me to listen to it (so does Strauss' Salome for that matter) but I think it is easy to see why it is so admired. 
I can also understand why so many people don't like it. What I don't understand is why so many are like the dog in the manger - just because they don't enjoy it, they will whinge on and on and on in an attempt to spoil it for those who do.

Well - tough, I listen to the opera and not to your bleating and I let you enjoy what you want without disparaging it


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

An admission ... I have never listened to the complete _Lulu _but it is on my list, the problem being that there is so much ahead of it and so little time! My first exposure to the music was back in the vinyl era when I bought an Anja Silja recital which had some _Lulu_ selections. Remembering that made me go to Spotify to listen to a copy of the _Lulu Suite_ from a live Concertgetbow performance and am reminded that while it is a different musical world from other somewhat contemporaneous works such as Strauss' _Arabella_, it isn't that far removed from them.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I thought I would dreg up an old post I submitted about _Lulu_.

I hope some will find it amusing. 

http://www.talkclassical.com/25847-tips-help-appreciate-atonal.html?highlight=lulu#post468828


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Anyone who can say with a straight face that the character of Lulu is "everything I could hope to be" is either deeply confused, rationalizing madly, or a sociopath. Since Hannigan has not been reported to have swindled or poisoned anyone, I'm willing to rule out the third of those.
> 
> Artists always need to find, or invent, reasons to justify their interest in the roles they play. Her real reasons for finding Lulu attractive we may never know; she may not fully know them herself. Maybe it's just an extreme case of "feminist" assertiveness - a need to identify herself as a "strong woman" - or an identification with a woman who is not inhibited by normal fears (which Hannigan claims she feels) or intimidated by a male-dominated world (which Hannigan also feels the need to mention here). But Lulu is plainly both the victim and the victimizer of stupid, lustful, predatory men (which appear to be about the only kinds there are in this opera). The fact that she's "true to herself" says nothing about what sort of self she's true to. Jack the Ripper was true to himself too - but no one considers him admirable.
> 
> Hannigan really doesn't attempt to justify her view of Lulu. Knowing the story of the opera - watching Lulu's willingness to flirt with everyone without a shred of conscience, and her ice-cold reactions to the deaths of all the fools she's involved with - I can't take Hannigan's starry-eyed heroine-worship seriously.


Woodduck, I greatly respect you but at the risk of triggering another skirmish in the gender wars  let me just say that you (a) are taking her statements far too literally and (b) are looking at it from a distinctly male perspective. The world doesn't look quite the same way from the other side


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Woodduck, I greatly respect you but at the risk of triggering another skirmish in the gender wars  let me just say that you (a) are taking her statements far too literally and (b) are looking at it from a distinctly male perspective. The world doesn't look quite the same way from the other side


I can only wonder, then, what Hannigan's rapturous praise of Lulu means if _not_ taken literally, what a female perspective would be, and how Lulu's world looks from the _other_ other side.

The character of Lulu was victimized by men from the age of twelve, forced into prostitution, and apparently came out of that knowing no way of dealing with the world and establishing relationships except through sex. She desires men; men - fools that they are - desire her because she's pretty and throws herself at them, and for her this is simply the natural state of affairs and the basic substance of life. She acts without apparent conscience or any sense of responsibility, and regardless of consequences. She is completely straightforward about what she wants and what she does, and in that sense she is "true to herself."

Pardon me if I don't find this inspiring. Perhaps someone looking at the world from the other side can show me why I should, and in what nonliteral sense Hannigan seems to adore Lulu and say of her things like "a woman who is the architect of her own destiny" (which she most certainly is not), "one of the most honest people I have ever met," "she lives every moment with a complete and committed presence," and "she is everything I can hope to be." Being honest and living every moment are certainly well and good in themselves, but they are not necessarily marks of maturity. In fact they are quite typical of infancy, and part of growing up is learning that there are moments other than the present one, and people other than oneself to factor into one's decisions. Lulu appears to me a case of warped and arrested development, and as the opera's prologue portrays her, a kind of wild animal. I suppose we all at times envy our cats and dogs their ability to live fully in the moment, but they are hardly everything we can hope to be.

I feel an aggressive edge in Hannigan's personality which makes me think that Lulu represents for her a sort of compensation, a "take that" attitude, perhaps a response to her own fearful side and/or to men. It's odd that she admiringly calls Lulu "angry" and calls her a "woman," despite the fact that the character is 15 at the beginning of the opera and 18 when she invites Jack the Ripper into her room. Well, I must say that an angry teenage "woman" who seduces every man in sight is a girl who needs help, not someone an actual grown woman of Hannigan's age should aspire to be like. Maybe Hannigan succeeded in being the architect of _her _own destiny despite the odds she faced in her own life - if so I congratulate her - and has personal reasons for rooting for the poor loser Lulu, even to the extent of seeing her senseless, grisly death as a fearless and honest choice. But that's not the way Wedekind and Berg saw her destiny. I'd say that they saw it in terms of the character that nearly everyone but Hannigan thinks Lulu is - terms to which Hannigan says, "I disagree."


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Alban Berg said of Lulu, that she was an "epiphany of Beauty in an insane world". 

When the Lulu suite was premiered at Berlin, by Erich Kleiber, in 1934, it was attacked by the Nazi press as the "glorification of a *****".

I think we need to find Lulu (well, at least I like to find *my* Lulu) somewhere in the middle of these two remarks. As a real woman (in Wedekind's plays she is rather a force of nature) that takes her own decisions and is the protagonist of her own life (and that's her appeal to people like Hannigan, I guess). However, even with her sordid life, she was gifted with a halo of innocence, that made her irresistible. When she loses that innocence, after killing Schön, she starts her decline and fall.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Just as every fictional narrative is open to many interpretations, the personalities of fictional characters are too.

I don't find Lulu inspirational for me. However, there are things that I find admirable in Wotan (I know! Really?!) Although it takes him some time I like the way he is ready to give up his fight for greed and power and resigns himself to his end and the returning of the gold to the Rhinemaidens which he knows is the only possible morally correct action. That doesn't mean that he is 'everything I would like to be'.

Getting back to Hannigan and Lulu, I can understand why she may admire some aspects of the character (her spontaneity and living for the moment without worrying about the future or her refusal to be oppressed) and I would suppose that her 'everything I would like to be' is hyperbole. The fascinating thing about this character is that her traits are like two sides of the same coin (one human's honesty is another's bluntness, one human's confident in her own sexuality is another's leading people on, one's strong is another's selfish etc.) I find that Lulu is all of these things. I imagine the piece divides feminists and some find it a powerful assertion of a strong female who won't be told what to do by the men around her, others a dreadful male fantasy coming from a patriarchal society. I just enjoy it for all its complexity and its enigmatic story.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

schigolch said:


> Alban Berg said of Lulu, that she was an "epiphany of Beauty in an insane world".
> 
> When the Lulu suite was premiered at Berlin, by Erich Kleiber, in 1934, it was attacked by the Nazi press as the "glorification of a *****".
> 
> I think we need to find Lulu (well, at least I like to find *my* Lulu) somewhere in the middle of these two remarks. As a real woman (in Wedekind's plays she is rather a force of nature) that takes her own decisions and is the protagonist of her own life (and that's her appeal to people like Hannigan, I guess). However, even with her sordid life, she was gifted with a halo of innocence, that made her irresistible. When she loses that innocence, after killing Schön, she starts her decline and fall.


I'm not sure just what lies between an epiphany of Beauty and a *****. What does that tell us about the psychology of a girl who had the past she had and does the things she does? To me it sounds like an attempt to make her into some sort of mythical archetype rather than a person, which may indeed be what Berg had in mind but which seems a rather Romanticized view of woman, a sentimental and frankly sexist projection of the male psyche. Maybe the culture wasn't yet ready to see women as purely human; even Freud, in his pioneering psychological work, was having trouble doing so.

I have not come to the opera Lulu with any background knowledge of Wedekind's or Berg's conception of Lulu. I know only what I see the character do, and what the other characters tell us of her life. I see her as what she would be in real life - a damaged teenage girl, whose decline and fall began long before she shoots Schoen - not some powerful "force of nature." Her power over men derives from the stupidity and weakness of those men (truly a pathetic lot in this opera), which as a juvenile sex slave she would have learned to exploit. I can't view her through any Romantic halo. Perhaps an attempt to view her realistically is contrary to Berg's intentions; he was still a Romantic at heart, and the opera strikes me as an attempt to elevate grimly naturalistic subject matter to the level of Wagnerian archetype. But Lulu is no Kundry, who might present an interesting parallel and be worth discussing as a more genuinely mythical illustration of what woman looks like in the distorted perspective of man.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't know where the information about Lulu's age came from, but in the play she's 18 at the point where the opera begins, and in the opera her age is not explicitly mentioned, if I recall.

Looking back through the libretto, there is a line from Schigolch:

"You cried like that on one occasion fifteen years ago."

I don't remember exactly when they were supposed to have met, but at the very youngest it was seven or so? Like I always thought, at the end of the opera Lulu is in her early 20s.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

In the world of Lulu, women are a commodity to be used, abused and discarded so what does one need to do to retain any degree of self-respect? I would say that given how alien it is to what we can comprehend, that we would be wise not to draw too many parallels nor form judgements. Remember that being an 18 year old at that time and in that environment is nothing like our western world. While it is admittedly a considerable stretch, the other operatic character who I am most reminded of is Magda in La Rondine (who I have often thought of as an older Musetta.) I suspect that Barbara Hannigan appreciates that fact and is looking at Lulu through the prism of what it would have been like to have to be in that situation.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Schigolch is the companion of Lulu since she was a small child. Potentially, since she was born. Maybe he was her father, maybe he just find her in the streets, abandoned to her fate by her mother. He was also the only friend the girl knew until she was taken by Dr. Schön. Possibly, her lover, too.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schigolch said:


> Schigolch is the companion of Lulu since she was a small child. Potentially, since she was born. Maybe he was her father, maybe he just find her in the streets, abandoned to her fate by her mother. He was also the only friend the girl knew until she was taken by Dr. Schön. Possibly, her lover, too.


You are more familiar with the original source material as well as its various adaptations. What is Lulu's age, if it is ever given?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> In the world of Lulu, women are a commodity to be used, abused and discarded so what does one need to do to retain any degree of self-respect? I would say that given how alien it is to what we can comprehend, that we would be wise not to draw too many parallels nor form judgements. Remember that being an 18 year old at that time and in that environment is nothing like our western world. While it is admittedly a considerable stretch, the other operatic character who I am most reminded of is Magda in La Rondine (who I have often thought of as an older Musetta.) *I suspect that Barbara Hannigan appreciates that fact and is looking at Lulu through the prism of what it would have been like to have to be in that situation.*


No doubt she is. And that's exactly how I'm looking at it - except that Hannigan claims to see Lulu as the heroic "architect of her own destiny", and I see her as a pathetic victim whose power is as dependent on men as is her ultimate fate, and ultimately illusory. If we're going to look at Lulu from a sociological perspective, and not as a Romanticized male fantasy, which view is more realistic?

For a brief look at Hannigan's Lulu, here's a little clip I found on YouTube.






This is the scene where Dr. Schoen tells the painter about Lulu's past, driving the painter to commit suicide by cutting his throat. In the libretto, Lulu is not present during this conversation, but in this production she is not only present, frigidly indifferent to the painter's pain, but enacts a pantomime with a razor which seems to be urging the painter to kill himself. We may assume that Hannigan approves of the view of Lulu presented here: an emotionally dead, sadistic sociopath. "Architect of her destiny"?

The presentation of this scene is, as I said, not in accord with the libretto, and I don't think Lulu, despite her moral failings, is intended to be the horrific monster we see here. If Hannigan loves and admires the character so much, it's hard to believe that she would not have put her foot down and rejected this portrayal. If she does approve of it, what does that say about her?


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> You are more familiar with the original source material as well as its various adaptations. What is Lulu's age, if it is ever given?


In the drama, she is represented as a very young girl offering flowers (and, incidentally, offering herself too) to Dr. Schön, the first time they met. Unfortunately, I don't remember if an exact age is mentioned, it's a long time since I read the two plays ("Erdgeist" and "Die Büchse der Pandora"). The impression I get is that she was probably 13/14 years old. When the opera stars, she should be around 18, as mentioned above.

The idea of Wedekind was certainly to portrait Lulu as an atavistic creature, a modern Pandora, a living representation of sexual desire and the inevitability of the clash between civilization and basic instincts. And he wanted also to send a message: sexuality is the same for all social classes, and reveals them as nothing more than an artifice and an injustice. (more or less, his own words).

For Berg, Lulu is a young woman, with all her background and her complicated life. A fascinating woman, that is taken by other people and by her own decisions, to her fateful end at the hand of Jack the Ripper.

Consider the Portrait of Lulu, that is appearing in the libretto as a symbol, always present on stage. It's like the reverse of Dorian Gray's portrait. Here is the real Lulu that is declining, while the painting is unaltered. The Countess dies gazing at this perfect portrait, and she falls once again in love with Lulu. With this elusive, beautiful and pure Lulu, that would remain forever in the portrait, but was never possible in her real life.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

The Conte said:


> I imagine the piece divides feminists and some find it a powerful assertion of a strong female who won't be told what to do by the men around her, others a dreadful male fantasy coming from a patriarchal society. I just enjoy it for all its complexity and its enigmatic story.


With Lulu, the idea of the male projection onto women isn't just subtext, it's text. Lulu is given a different name by every man who finds himself attracted by her, and even Lulu is only the name given her by Schigolch.

You are correct that both the original plays and the operatic adaptation have attracted both criticism and praise for their portrayal of the lead character.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

No opinion yet: I missed my chance to see it at the Met Live in HD last fall! I couldn't attend and missed the replays as well. It's on my list.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

I havnt seen or heard Lulu apart from a few excerpts and Im still wary of watching the Opera. Im no stranger to the Berg's music and enjoy the music of the period, but I think in this case I expect to find it a very challenging listening as an opera fan and more than a little disturbing as a man. 
These are probably two very good reasons to buy it on dvd, grit my teeth, and let myself be subject to its intentions. 
I suppose I'm a little afraid that I wont be able engage with it respond to the subject matter and that it may make me more aware of my own limitations as a person and a music lover. I simply dont know if Im ready for it yet.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

DoReFaMi said:


> No opinion yet: I missed my chance to see it at the Met Live in HD last fall! I couldn't attend and missed the replays as well. It's on my list.


I've found when you shop around that the DVD is usually no more expensive than the live cinema broadcast. Of course, you don't get the spectacle of the big screen but you do get to keep the recording.


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## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Musically fascinating, no doubt, but the story, the characters, and the score all leave me pretty cold. Of Berg's operas, I find _Wozzeck_ more concise, more entertaining, and more moving.


You find it 'musically fascinating' but the score leaves you 'cold'?

Isn't this a contradiction?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I don't see a contradiction there; fascination does not imply a connection. Is there not any art that you can see the skill it took to create it, even though it doesn't work for you?

I love _Lulu_, but I also find it fraught, intense, overwhelming. That is to say, it does not leave me cold, but the effect it has is not entirely pleasant.

When I saw it live this summer - albeit in a cut version with reduced orchestration - I was unsure I wanted to see it again any time soon. I recovered by the time of the Met's Live in HD broadcast, and I'm glad I did, but, again, I came out not looking to watch the opera again any time soon, even though I had Lulu's tone rows stuck in my head.


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## Dawood (Oct 11, 2015)

I watched a version of Lulu recently with Patricia Petibon as the protagonist (stage direction by Olivier Py). For me I can't imagine it's a work that I would listen to without visuals. It needs both sides of the performance coin. 

It's not really an opera I would actively seek out various interpretations of neither - although I do want to see the other version with Petibon in, for comparison and curiosity.

The version I watched struck me as the tale of a lost soul - simply descending along a downward spiral of doom. The visuals used a lot of unpleasant but not perhaps unexpected tricks (a creepy character dressed as a clown).

For me, the music sounded like Wagner being shoved through a wall. 

Which isn't a bad thing by the way


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Dawood said:


> I watched a version of Lulu recently with Patricia Petibon as the protagonist (stage direction by Olivier Py). For me I can't imagine it's a work that I would listen to without visuals. It needs both sides of the performance coin.
> 
> It's not really an opera I would actively seek out various interpretations of neither - although I do want to see the other version with Petibon in, for comparison and curiosity.
> 
> ...


That's really hard to visualize! :lol:

That Petibon performance (it's on YouTube) is really engaging. The character of Lulu has to be charismatic for the opera to work, and her slightly over-the-top portrayal was, for me, totally absorbing and kept me watching despite having no particular love for the opera. Very different from some other performances I've sampled.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Dawood said:


> For me, the music sounded like Wagner being shoved through a wall.


What a brilliant turn of phrase! Thanks for that


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## Dawood (Oct 11, 2015)

Thanks good people. Like I say I'm really curious to see the other Petibon Lulu. Does she give the same performance again - all big eyes and mad glances or does she try something different? It's definitely on my wish list.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2016)

Easily as good as any Mozart, Verdi, or Wagner opera. Masterpiece.


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## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

DavidA said:


> I don't care for this opera. It might be a masterpiece but it's not to my taste. Difficult on the ears I find it. So do most people judging by the turn out for the recent broadcast from the Met, or so I hear.


Was there really a low turn out for the performance in HD?


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

GBZ said:


> Was there really a low turn out for the performance in HD?


probably. But even if relatively few people went to the cinema, it can still be a very enjoyable opera :tiphat:


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

The turnout where I saw Lulu seemed to be about normal for the Live in HD transmissions.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

The last performance of "Lulu" at Madrid's Teatro Real, back in 2009, with Agneta Eichenholz and Eliahu Inbal conducting, there was a full house, and a long standing ovation at the end. Same situation one year later, at Barcelona's Liceu, with Patricia Petibon and Michael Boder conducting.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

I attended the opening night of the Lulu run at the Met last November. Opening nights tend to be well-attended anyway, but let me assure you the place was packed and the opera was enthusiastically received.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

^^^ its great that there were full (and enthusiastic) houses for live performances and for some cinema presentations. Great. 

It does not surprise me that at some cinema presentations of this (and some other operas) there might be very sparse attendances.

Either way, even if relatively few people went to the cinema, it can still be a very enjoyable opera


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I can't believe I missed this thread when it was going on.

_Lulu_ is my favorite opera. I can't agree that it's just a sordid story about bad people.

Two key scenes:

One, when Lulu tells how, when she was sick as a girl, she saw in her dreams the man she was made for, and who was made for her; and how ever since then, when a man approaches her, she knows whether they are made for each other. She says this as she explains why she will not become a prostitute.

Two, when Alwa, Schigolch and the Countess sing about how enraptured they are by the beauty of Lulu's portrait, while Lulu herself is standing right there.


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## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

<double post error>


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

schigolch said:


> I felll in love with "Lulu" not at the opera house, but at the cinema. Many years ago, watching G. W. Pabst's _Die Büchse der Pandora_, with an amazing Louise Brooks starring as Lulu.
> 
> Later, I also fell in love with Berg's opera, that is one of by all-time favorites.
> 
> ...


The difference is that Brooks's Lulu is predatory but also a sympathetic victim. Some of that's in the story, but most of it comes from Brooks herself.

The only Berg LULU I've seen is the Met stream. And good as the lead actress is, she's not believable as a victim. Perhaps she started life wrong, but it seems to me that most of her troubles now as an adult are self inflicted. Maybe other performances are more sympathetic.

The music is certainly challenging, though it's haunting and perfect for the mood. But spending time with these people makes me feel like I did when I read Motley Crüe's THE DIRT or watched Wolf of Wall Street - like I need three showers.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

I wanted to add that I made me previous post before I had read through the whole thread. You lot have made some really good points about the character of Lulu, and so I will reconsider my initial impressions. I'm not in a hurry to watch it again, but it's always a good reminder to try to be open-minded.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Scopitone said:


> The difference is that Brooks's Lulu is predatory but also a sympathetic victim. Some of that's in the story, but most of it comes from Brooks herself.
> 
> The only Berg LULU I've seen is the Met stream. And good as the lead actress is, she's not believable as a victim. Perhaps she started life wrong, but it seems to me that most of her troubles now as an adult are self inflicted. Maybe other performances are more sympathetic.
> 
> The music is certainly challenging, though it's haunting and perfect for the mood. But spending time with these people makes me feel like I did when I read Motley Crüe's THE DIRT or watched Wolf of Wall Street - like I need three showers.


I feel that the opera makes Lulu's character sympathetic by beautifying her through the music. She leads others into death and degradation, but in a way she is innocent of it all, and it is male lust that is the true culprit in all of the disastrous turns of fate.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I feel that the opera makes Lulu's character sympathetic by beautifying her through the music. She leads others into death and degradation, but in a way she is innocent of it all, and it is male lust that is the true culprit in all of the disastrous turns of fate.


Well, that certainly fits the "Pandora's Box" image. She causes a lot of pain and suffering, but she feels really bad about it. It's not her fault she's made this way, and she wouldn't have done it if she could help it.

(I'm being a little bit silly, but not entirely.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Scopitone said:


> Well, that certainly fits the "Pandora's Box" image. She causes a lot of pain and suffering, but she feels really bad about it. It's not her fault she's made this way, and she wouldn't have done it if she could help it.
> 
> (I'm being a little bit silly, but not entirely.)


Whether or not Lulu is a responsible agent, her behavior scarcely inspires sympathy, and it's still difficult to feel anything for anyone in this opera. They are a dreary and repellant bunch, and it's just as well for them that they all end up being put out of their misery. The score is fascinating, though, and I know it would reveal more with each hearing, should I ever get in the mood to keep company with such empty people again.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I enjoy a _Lulu_ who's fascinating with some type of quirky sexual allure. The music, at least to me, reflects the pscholgical complexity of the people involved and I consider it a remarkable 20th-century opera. There should be some sense of electrical excitement and tension that runs through it. The best short discription I've read is that...

"The character of Lulu has been described as embodying both elements of female sexuality's dualism, earth-mother and wh*re. In the words of Karl Kraus, she is the woman "who became the destroyer of all because everyone destroyed her".


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