Barcelona has a very special connection with Alban Berg, as it was there that his Violin Concerto was premiered in 1935, one year before his death. His almost atonal opera Wozzeck had a distinguished trajectory as well, that is until it fell into the hands of Calixto Bieito. As Londoners know all too well, his name alone brings out the worst from the national press and his two ENO productions, Verdi's Ballo in Maschera and Don Giovanni, apparently served to bring down their capable General Director, Nicholas Payne. Bieito's new production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly in Berlin succeeded by setting it into a country which prospers through sex tourism. But Wozzeck is not by Puccini, and its music is so intricately enmeshed with the plot that it demands a producer who can read the score as well as the words. The main problem of Bieito's Konzept is the environment. He sets it in an oil refinery, with a mad Captain with a rifle, a doctor in love with dead bodies and a Drum Major as a local entertainer, all suffering from lack of air, of sunshine and of any recognisable form of humanity. Which is the problem, because the beauty of Wozzeck is that everybody seems normal, even Wozzeck. After all, the setting should have been Vienna at the end of the First World War, when Karl Kraus described it as "a padded cell where everyone was screaming to get out!" So, for Bieito, if we sort out the problems with the environment, then we avoid creating Wozzeck's problems. That is preposterous and reveals a lack of understanding of the work as a whole. Of course, there is much blood, too much, there are scenes of cannibalism, of necrophilia, and Wozzeck gets a dose of human intestines rubbed on his face when his own comrades, instead of the Drum Major, hit him. Another serious misconception.

I saw the two varied casts on 7 and 8 January. Jochen Schmeckebecher sang a noble Wozzeck much more adequately voiced than Franz Hawlata; Vivian Tierney was a much more moving and convincing Marie than the glacial Angela Denoke, who happily seemed to have overcome her vocal problems with a very well sung Marie; and Andreas Conrad far outsang Hubert Delamboye as the Captain.

The quite sensational Chorus and Orchestra, revealed a world-class theatre company, with a conductor London should book soon. Sebastian Weigle read the score with suavity, so that it seemed as if Wozzeck was more than a little influenced by Mahler; and how thankful I felt for that ingratiating, mellow and fierce sound!