COMPOSERS: Berg
LABELS: EMI
WORKS: Wozzeck; Lulu-Suite
PERFORMER: Hamburg State Opera
CATALOGUE NO: EMI 640 6622 (1999)
Recorded live in a Hamburg staging (by Peter Konwitschny) in 1998, Wozzeck benefits from careful attention to Berg’s actual notes – often vaguely delivered in earlier recordings – instigated by Ingo Metzmacher. Bo Skovhus’s deadpan soldier disintegrates with moving conviction, aided by the casual cruelty of Chris Merritt’s Captain and Frode Olsen’s Doctor, the brutality of Jan Blinkhof’s Drum Major, and the waywardness of Angela Denoke’s Marie. The disc also includes Berg’s Lulu Suite from the CBSO under Rattle, with Arleen Augér the refined soloist. George Hall