Search - Alban Berg, Lorin Maazel, Julia Migenes :: Berg - Lulu / Migenes · Fassbaender · Adam · Hotter · Maazel

Lorin Maazel's tenure at the Wiener Staatsoper lasted a mere two seasons in the early 1980s. And his penchant for performing 20th-century works while in Vienna was decidedly unpopular. But as this reading of Berg's great, famously unfinished Lulu signals, Maazel did fabulous work, dramatically and sonically. The fact that this Lulu was recorded live costs the overall program in certain spots--especially where accidental contact was made with a microphone, creating slight recorded bumps. More remarkable is the great level of contrast Maazel and the instrumentalists maintained even during the greatest twists in the 12-note row that Berg hyperexamines throughout the score. Not only do the strings tell late-Romantic tales that seem ever askew, but the vibraphone rings with nervous clarity, and the saxophones emit strange wafts as Julia Migenes mirrors Lulu's descent with palpable tension in her artful vocal frayings. Not since Pierre Boulez's Lulu on Deutsche Grammophon has this work rung so hair-raisingly. --Andrew Bartlett