Moses: The Opera Inarticulate Prophet Productions Arnold Schoenberg wrote two of the planned three acts of his Moses und Aron between 1930 and 1932, but wrote only sketches for Old and New the third. Nonetheless, the two acts have a logical unity of their own. He originally planned the work as an oratorio, and it still has a major part for the chorus. Only one of the two title characters (Aaron) actually sings; Moses speaks only in Sprechstimme; tongue- tied, he needs his half-brother Aaron as his mouthpiece. Primarily, the story serves as the carrier for its ideas, which range from the overt to the personal: • The main idea is that God is unknowable, indescribable, and irreducible. By taking Moses’ thoughts and turning them into language and symbols the people can understand, Aaron is both fulfilling his mission and betraying it. • The opera marks an important stage in Schoenberg’s struggle with his Jewish identity. He had converted to Christianity in 1898, but nonetheless suffered from the growing anti-Semitism of the interwar period. He returned to Judaism in 1933. • One might also see a reflection of Schoenberg’s struggles as a pioneer of atonality in those of Moses to express divine truth in a language that no one around him understands. The production we shall watch, from the Ruhrtriennale in 2009, is by Willy Decker. When the audience enters the converted industrial building, there at first seems to be no stage. And indeed, the performer of Moses is seated among the audience. But as he hears the Voice from the Burning Bush, removes his clothes and comes forward, the space opens up. We shall watch his first meeting with Aaron, followed by the 11. Worship of the Golden Calf, which takes up most of Act Two. Two — Schoenberg: Moses und Aron (mainly from Act Two) 32½ Dale Duesing (Moses), Andreas Conrad (Aaron). Bochum 2009; Towering c. Michael Boder; d. Willy Decker. Masterpieces http://www.brunyate.com/OpProdMCC/ Two Towering Masterpieces Wozzeck: The Inarticulate Soldier Neither Arnold Schoenberg, the founder of atonality, nor his pupil Alban Berg wrote tunes that would send the audience away Although Alban Berg was writing Wozzeck whistling, yet both had a strong dramatic sense and the operas during the First World War (he began in 1914 they created stand as towering landmarks of the Twentieth and finished in 1922), his source was from a Century. Berg's Wozzeck (1925), based on an unfinished play from different century entirely. Georg Büchner a century earlier by Georg Büchner, is the savage story of an army (1813–37) was a brilliant but short-lived writer private exploited by his superiors and driven at the end to murder; from the start of the 19th Century. His play its drama is built-in. Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (1932) is a Woyzeck was left unfinished at his death, tougher nut to crack, but the 2009 staging at the Ruhr Triennale existing only as a large number of short scenes. by Willy Decker, who virtually built an entire theater to contain his It was first performed only in 1913 in Munich work, is remarkable both for technical innovation and lucidity. and in Vienna the following year, a performance that Berg attended. Büchner’s protagonist Wozzeck is an ordinary soldier in a provincial Music Without a Key town. He has a son by his common-law wife Marie, an occasional prostitute, and does his best to support them by extra money he earns Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) started out as a lush late-Romantic from shaving his Captain and offering himself to the regimental Doctor composer. But then, in the early 1900s, he began to feel that the process for medical experiments. He is also superstitious, and, when it appears has gone too far. If you are going to stretch every chord you’ve got, what that Marie has betrayed him for his own Drum Major, insanely jealous. is the point of having a key system at all? So he proposed an approach to The play is thus a searing attack on militarism and social injustice. composition that would jettison tonality altogether (hence the term Working on the opera during his own service in the World War, Berg Atonal Music) and treat every note as equal to every other. He also went must have seen uncanny relevance across the centuries. on to propose various mathematical systems to order the notes in a coordinated way, hence the term Serial Music. He and the two We shall watch seven excerpts in two groups. The first group, from Act composers who most closely followed him, his pupil Alban Berg (1885– One, show glimpses of all the major characters in the opera: Wozzeck of 1935) and colleague Anton Webern (who did not write operas), are now course, the Captain, Marie, the Doctor, and the Drum Major. referred to collectively as the Second Viennese School (the first being — Berg: Wozzeck. Scenes from Act I 13½ Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven). Franz Grundheber (Wozzeck), Heinz Zednik (Captain), Hildegard What this means in practical terms is that, while you may hear fragments Behrens (Marie), Aage Haugland (Doctor), Walter Raffeiner of melody, you won’t hear tunes in the normal sense. But you will hear (Drum Major). Vienna 1987; c. Claudio Abbado; d. Adolf Dresen very intense drama, and lines delivered in passionate and arresting ways. The second group will concentrate on the growth of Wozzeck’s jealousy, One approach invented by Schoenberg is Sprechstimme (speech voice) his murder of Marie, his own suicide, and Berg’s extraordinary epilogue: In which notes are indicated as rhythm and contour only. We shall a searing orchestral adagio followed by a brief scene for children, demonstrate it in the scene from Wozzeck where Marie reads the Bible; including Wozzeck’s son by Marie. it is the only scene we shall show in a non-traditional production. — Berg: Wozzeck. Scenes from Acts II and III 16½ — Berg: Wozzeck. Act III, scene 1 (opening) 1 Cast as above Angela Denoke (Marie). Barcelona 2006; d. Calixto Bieto.