Klarinet Archive - Posting 000911.txt from 1997/10

From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: Lulu
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 13:28:43 -0400

Avrahm Galper wrote:

> Not enough that the music is a little hairy, one of the characters in
> the opera is none other than that of Jack the Ripper, a maniacal
> prostitute murderer at the end of the last century in East London
> England.

One theory is that he was an errant son of Queen Victoria.

> The score is not easy.

I can't imagine it is. Berg, though, seems to me to make good use of
the clarinet: that moment of the chorale in the violin concerto is out
of this world.

> Fortunately we had Walter Susskind, to lead us in this work.
> It was the suite from the Opera. It was performed at a regular concert
> of the Toronto Symphony.
> For this type of work, he was the greatest.
> Had a lot of patience at rehearsals, never lost his cool under the
> constant questioning of this or that.

Does the suite have the offstage band thing from the party in (?)Act
3? That if anything is eerier still -- all this 12-tone stuff, with a
jaunty little tune (still not exactly pop music) coming in from
off-stage.

> To make the score more realistic, they brought in an actress to utter a
> shrill SCREAM in the goriest part of the suite.

After poor old Lulu has been reduced to prostitution herself. Chose
her clients wrong, she did.

> The rehearsals went OK. The SCREAM was there. A professional SCREAMER
> !
>
> Came the performance, we play and play until it came to the "SCREAM"
> part.
>
> So what comes out?
>
> eee, eegh eeeeegh, and a croaky scream.

Arf arf. Comes of having actresses. If you'd had a singer, she'd
have had to give up a lot earlier ;-)

Robin