Opera in three acts (fifteen scenes), Op. 7
Libretto by Alban Berg
after Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck
English translation by Richard Stokes
The Cast
Andrew Shore, baritone - Wozzeck, a soldier
Alan Woodrow, tenor - Drum Major
Peter Bronder, tenor - Andres
Stuart Kale, tenor - Captain
Clive Bayley, bass (PMF Scholar) - Doctor
Leslie John Flanagan, baritone - First Apprentice
Iain Paterson, bass - Second Apprentice
John Graham-Hall, tenor - The Idiot
Dame Josephine Barstow, soprano - Marie
Jean Rigby, mezzo-soprano - Margret
Marie's Boy, Soldiers and Lads, Girls & Whores, Children
Susan Singh Choristers
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
Paul Daniel - Conductor
Recorded in Watford Colosseum - 14-18 July 2002
Producer - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Michael Common
It succeeds, mightily, for several reasons. One, obviously, is the direct communicativeness of the English-language text in the ears and mind of an Anglophone listener. Richard Stokes's translation of Berg's own Büchner adaptation may not be entirely unified in tone and style - rawly colloquial phrases cohabit with oddly archaic ones - but since the singers put across their words with such searing vividness (Marie's cry of "I'm frightened" and Wozzeck's of "I'm reeling!" left behind unsettling echoes for days afterwards), it must be a workable vehicle for singing-acting in the first place. But this is more than just a serviceable Wozzeck-in-English: it's a telling, indeed profoundly stirring enactment of the work tout court.'
'This is a fine new Wozzeck; a studio ambience can bring real advantages, especially if it underlines the kind of claustrophobic intimacy and obsessiveness and the result is intensely moving without in any way underplaying the music's visceral dramatic power.
One result of Daniel's concentrated yet warmly expressive moulding of the score is a strong sense of its late-Romantic background in Strauss and also in Mahler. The Philharmonia play superbly throughout, and the recording successfully balances a spacious orchestral canvas of the widest dynamic range while placing the voices effectively - neither too forward nor too recessed. Nor are there any weak links in the Cast, with three tenors, John Graham-Hall, Stuart Kale and Alan Woodrow, making particularly telling contributions, Josephine Barstow has one or two squally moments in delineating Marie's bewilderment and fear, but her voice remains in remarkably good shape, and the character's conflicting impulses are brilliantly conveyed. Shore is one of the best operatic baritones of our time, and he dominates the drama with an utterly convincing blend of the menacing and the pathetic. Moreover, his way with the text is exemplary.
This performance proves that an English Wozzeck can easily match the impact of the best German performances... the virtues of this recording are such that it makes as powerful a case for this extraordinary work as any other version I've heard.
