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Start Date: February 10, 2021
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Vintage ALBAN BERG WOZZECK, BOHM/LEAR/FISCHER DIESKAU - DGG 2 LP 138 991/92

Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 2 LP German tulips issue, 1965, Made in Germany.  Includes 40-page Booklet in German, French and English.  Printed in Germany by Schwerdtie & Schantz KG, Berlin. 

The vinyl is mint. The 40-page libretto and sleeves are mint.  The box is in great condition with some minor edge wear.

Composed By – Alban Berg

Libretto By – Georg Büchner

Conductor – Karl Böhm

Orchestra – Orchester Der Deutschen Oper Berlin

Choir – Chor Der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Schöneberger Sängerknaben

Performers:

Handwerksbursch – Kurt Böhme

Handwerksbursch – Robert Koffmane

Andres – Fritz Wunderlich

Der Narr – Martin Vantin

Doktor – Karl Kohn

Hauptmann – Gerhard Stolze

Margret – Alice Oelke

Marie – Evelyn Lear

Soldat – Walter Muggelberg

Tambourmajor – Helmut Melchert

Wozzeck – Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck, by the German playwright Georg Buchner.

Berg adapted the libretto himself, retaining "the essential character of the play, with its many short scenes, its abrupt and sometimes brutal language, and its stark, if haunted, realism.”  The plot depicts the everyday lives of soldiers and the townspeople of a 19th century rural German-speaking town.  A soldier, Wozzeck, is humiliated by his Captain, who criticises him for leading an immoral life.  Wozzeck and Marie have a son, but they are not married.  Wozzeck's dark and anxious character is accentuated by a fear of dusk, when he often has visions of death and destruction.  Wozzeck is an emblematic opera of the 1920s, a harbinger of the unease and aching void of the 20th century, haunted by war and death, the misery of the human condition set to a music that is economical in its effects and carefully composed, yet whose emotional power grabs the listener by the throat.

REVIEW:  The first studio recording of Wozzeck shows the considerable improvement in sound quality obtainable after thirteen years of developing technology. Both the orchestral and vocal sound are more precise and immediate, and the rich detail of the orchestration is much more easily discernable, even when, as occasionally happens, the balance has been adjusted too much to the singers' advantage. Karl Böhm's conducting is well controlled, even restrained, but at the price of a certain heaviness resulting from tempos that are often too slow. Nevertheless, his overall conception of the opera is well unified and attentive to the drama.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in the title role, can hardly be faulted for accuracy, but paradoxically his sound is too richly dramatic for this opera, and one if left with the impression that Fischer-Dieskau overacts vocally in what is essentially a lyric role. The same is true, though to a lesser extent, of Evelyn Lear, who brings to Marie's role a greater range of expression than we need to hear, when the totality of the music has so much expressivity already built into the score. Yet these criticisms may seem like carping when the performances are so intelligent and sensitive so as to sustain the drama so fully. Of the other singers, Gerhard Stolze comes across as memorably nasty captain, and Karl Christian Koln is excellent as the Doctor; it is well to remember how much raving there is in both these roles, and how careful the singers must be not to overdo it.