«I saw Wozzeck on stage, before the war, and made such an incredible impression that I decided to set it to music immediately». So wrote Alban Berg to his friend and colleague Anton Webern in 1918, at a time when his name was only known in the small circle of Schoenberg's pupils. International fame and affirmation would arrive a few years later and precisely thanks to Wozzeck, an opera inspired by Georg Büchner's novel of the same name, which would soon become a symbolic work of the early 20th century as well as an emblem of expressionist theatre. In Büchner's text, Alban Berg had in fact identified themes particularly dear to expressionist poetics such as nightmare, mental alienation and brutal murder. The opera in three acts and fifteen scenes premiered at the Berlin Staatsoper on 14 December 1925 to great acclaim. Berg conceived the opera as a system of closed forms where each scene of each act refers to a formal structure of the Western instrumental tradition such as the suite, the rhapsody, the march, the passacaglia, to name but a few, revised through a livid and anguished orchestral writing. On the vocal side, the almost spoken chant in Wozzeck's Sprechgesang stands out, renouncing all melodic artifice to emphasise the protagonist's sorrowful humanity.

Staging by Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
More characters TBD (updated: June 30, 2025)

Poster © Gianluigi Toccafondo