From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Wozzeck recordings
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:12:54 GMT

I've been asked to give some detail about the existing recordings
of Alban Berg's opera WOZZECK.  (If you want to see someone get
REALLY detailed, though not including the most recent [Abbado],
read Robin Holloway's chapter in OPERA ON RECORD 2.)

First, there is logically enough the first recording, on Columbia
and reissued on Odyssey in the 1970s; I wonder if Sony Classical
will ever give it a CD reissue.  It deserves it as a memento of how
a brilliant conductor (Mitropoulos) and willing-and-able cast dealt
with the opera when it all still seemed almost unimaginably
daunting, live in Carnegie Hall in 1951.  Everybody gets lost
pitch-wise from time to time, sometimes with endearingly daring
results -- Eileen Farrell (Marie) surprises herself and us with a
stunning high C# when the score only asked for B.  I admire and
respect her work, likewise that of Mack Harrell (Wozzeck), and
especially the conductor and his mettlesome orchestra.  And
Mitropoulos really does understand and project the drama and human
tragedy of the work.  The rest of the cast is more trying though,
and honestly the level of accuracy (not to mention vocalism) isn't
anywhere near good enough.  I'm not being a nitpicky pedant; the
other recordings aren't squeaky-clean in this respect either, but
they come a WHOLE lot closer.  At certain points, this crew really
isn't doing Berg's opera.  Let's leave this one on the "study for
its historical importance" shelf.

In 1965 DG issued a WOZZECK with Karl Boehm conducting the Berlin
Opera Orchestra.  Now this is more like it!  Full of color and
passion, and a precision that does not inhibit communication.  As
often happens with challenging masterpieces, the passing of a few
years has allowed everybody to get to know it better, and there's
much more assurance all round.  Evelyn Lear's Marie is especially
fine, a warm and beautiful voice put to ideal use.  Some have
always complained that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's customary
intelligence haunts him here and makes his Wozzeck too aware of
what's going on.  Maybe so, but it's a fault I can't feel too
severe about; he sings so beautifully and meaningfully that his
every utterance forces us to listen.  These two, and the stunning
Andres of Fritz Wunderlich (one of the great voices of the century,
in a role that needs but seldom gets great singing) are still my
favorites for their roles.  And Gerhard Stolze, too hyper in almost
every other part he did, was a perfect fit for the Captain; hear
him once, and his lines become wedded in memory to his own personal
inflections.

A couple of years later Pierre Boulez made a recording for CBS with
Paris Opera forces.  He certainly coaxed amazing sounds out of that
orchestra, and the wealth of color and nuance has the paradoxical
effect of making his reading (Boulez being by stereotype a
"clinical cold" conductor) more romantic and impulsive than the
nominally more "romantic" Boehm.  Unfortunately Boulez did not turn
the same analytical ear on the singing; if he had, he could hardly
have approved the wholesale approximation and, worse, willful
rewriting (Walter Berry is especially at fault here, recomposing
whenever he pleases).  None of the cast seems to have taken much
heed of Berg's extraordinarily detailed instructions, and their
ideas are always more superficial and predictable than his.  This
is a recording only for those who always ignore the voices in opera
anyway.

But such folk (they do exist!) might be even better served by the
recording conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi, with the Vienna
Philharmonic.  Not a revelation like his LULU with the same forces
(why, oh why, did he never go back and finish that with an Act 3?),
this is still an astounding piece of playing and conducting, every
detail there as if spontaneously generating itself, every
instrument performing miracles of clarity and color.  If only the
cast were of equal caliber, this would be the WOZZECK of all time. 
But it isn't.  Anya Silja has everything but a steadily produced
voice, and Eberhard Waechter, with a basically heftier instrument,
contributes his share of wobble too, so there is a superabundance
of wiggling tone.  The rest of the cast is ok and the recording is
excellent.  (The CD throws in a recording of Schoenberg's Erwartung
with similar forces, so this may be a good buy for filling 2 gaps
in your collection.)

As for the most recent DG, Abbado conducting live in Vienna, I must
confess that I've heard it only once, at a friend's house and not
quite complete.  The impression I got was quite consistent though. 
Abbado has a film grasp of the score, and his coloristic skill
stands him in good stead.  But the singing just isn't attractive
enough; steady, beautiful tone is NOT dispensible in Berg any more
than anywhere else.  Hildegard Behrens and Franz Grundheber both
fail to satisfy on this count.  While this recording could be
welcomed nevertheless if it were the only one, it isn't, and we
have other better contenders to turn to.

So my recommendation is a clear vote for Boehm, with honorable
mention for Dohnanyi.

Jon Alan Conrad