Munich.(International - Lula gets a startling treatment from the Bavarian State Opera)(Opera Review)

Although Alban Berg's Lulu is not everyday repertoire, it is an eminently important work. On April 24, the Bavarian State Opera unveiled a new staging, its second go (after Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's forgettable 1986 production) at Friedrich Cerha's completed three-act version. This time, the direction was entrusted to David Alden, who juxtaposed time frames, traversing a period from the 1950s until the present. The opening scene shows the outlines of a single-house-dwelling suburban community, with a late-'50s model automobile parked in the middle of the stage. Out of it emerges the young, Lolita-like Lulu, dressed in a short frock. She might be mistaken for a naive cheerleader were it not that her every movement is an offer of sexual fulfillment. Scattered around the stage, observing, are those whose destiny Lulu will influence. It is to this scene that Lulu will return to die in the work's final minutes.

Alden confronts us throughout the evening with symbolic opposites. Motives of childhood are contrasted, often simultaneously, with motives of blood and violence. By moving the action into the last half of the twentieth century, Alden has actually heightened Berg's tragicomic situations. We are in a world of penthouse apartments, camcorders and computers. The painter's "photo-portrait" of a half-naked, bloodstained Lulu is omnipresent, as is a symbolic axe, ever at Lulu's side. Alden's Lulu is amoral, but she is not nearly so coldly calculating as this character is often presented. She gives her sexual favors indiscriminately but not entirely without pleasure, making her all the ...