(and masterful) formal design: all these aspects repel some as they attract others. Yet cabaret burlesque is as integral to the opera's make-up as high operatic tragedy. Paul Daniel and the Chandos engineers don't let us forget it. Piano, saxophone and vibraphone get the prominence they deserve. The farcical comings and goings in Parisian salon and London garret alike spring to life without the inevitable noises-off and drop-outs of an in-house recording... For Lulu in the raw, a Rosenkavalier with no underwear, I'll take this.'

BBC Music Magazine
'Throughout, the conversation-pieces, ironic exchanges and occasional splashes of coarse humour rendered by Richard Stokes's painstaking translation are delivered with verve, meshing confidently with the finely-balanced orchestral web of sound.'

The Guardian
'Paul Daniel makes sure Berg's complex vocal and orchestral textures are presented in a natural way, so that every word is distinct. And having a cast who have grown into their roles on stage is a wonderful bonus.
Lisa Saffer's Lulu is a tour de force, vocally dazzling, with a touching core of vulnerability. Susan Parry's Geschwitz provides the opera's link with real humanity, while Robert Hayward's Schoen is a provocative mixture of protector and predator. But the smaller roles are equally vivid, so that Berg's whole panorama of human weakness comes to life. Even if you already have a version of this fascinating masterpiece, this one is still well worth hearing.' 

Gramophone

'The 2002 production of Berg's Lulu by Richard Jones is generally agreed to be one of the best things to come from English National Opera in recent years. Chandos has done everyone a favour by transferring its 2005 revival lock, stock and smoking revolver from the opera house to the studio... This is important for two reasons. Lulu can seem forbidding to the uninitiated. Its amoral characters, its sordid plot,its enigmatic anti-heroine, its complex

CHAN 3130
6 January 2009

Opera in three acts
Libretto by Alban Berg, after Erdgeist and Büchse der Pandora by Frank Wedekind
English version by Richard Stokes
Act III realised by Friedrich Cerha

The Cast

Lisa Saffer, soprano – Lulu
Susan Parry, mezzo-soprano - Countess Geschwitz Anna Burford, mezzo-soprano (PMF Scholar) - Dresser/Schoolboy/Waiter
Graham Danby bass -
Professor of Medicine/Theatre Manager/Banker Stuart Kale tenor - Painter/Second Client
Robert Hayward baritone - Dr Schön/Jack the Ripper John Graham-Hall tenor – Alwa
Gwynne Howell bass – Schigolch
Robert Poulton baritone - Animal Tamer/Acrobat Alan Oke tenor - African Prince/Manservant/Marquis Roger Begley bass - Police Commissioner
Claire Mitcher soprano - Fifteen-year-old Girl
Paul Napier-Burrows bass – Servant
Jane Powell mezzo-soprano – Mother
Moira Harris soprano – Designer

Lulu

Toby Stafford-Allen, baritone (PMF Scholar) – Journalist
English National Opera Orchestra conducted by Paul Daniel 

Recorded in Blackheath Halls, London - 14-19 & 22 May 2005
Producer - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Michael Common