“I have never been taken for anything different from what I am,” proclaims Lulu, moments before shooting her third husband. Ironically, Lulu exists as an archetype for men – both the characters in the opera and the creative team directing it – to project their fantasies. In the opera, her husbands and lovers refer to her as Eva, Nelly and Mignon, layering biblical and literary allusions onto the central character. To these, director Krzysztof Warlikowski adds his own feminine archetypes: Lilith, the biblical first wife of Adam who refuses to subjugate herself, and Odette/Odile, the personifications of innocence and evil in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
It is not Tchaikovsky, though, who serves as the primary allusion; rather, it is Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-winner-turned-camp-classic Black Swan who most informs the campy, glossy aesthetic of the production. Indeed, Małgorzata Szczęśniak’s sets include every decadent Warlikowski cliché in the book: expensive wood panelling, glass boxes, omnipresent video projections (here representing Lulu’s portrait). Warlikowski’s hyperkinetic productions can often seem like a sensory overload, particularly in a sprawling work like Lulu, but he has edited and trimmed down the production into a pleasingly taut narrative.
This production was built around the Barbara Hannigan, at the time singing her very first Lulu. It’s hard to imagine any other singer in this production with its extreme physical demands, from being flung around the stage by Bo Skovhus’ hulking Dr Schön to singing high Ds en pointe. Indeed, Lulu’s ballet dreams are ever present thanks to a corps de ballet of ballet students. In the Marquis’ ode to human trafficking, Warlikowski reveals a line of young girls, doing their exercises at the barre. Ballet, prostitution, opera, porn – what difference is there between “high” and “low” art, Warlikowski seems to ask, in their voyeuristic demands on the bodies of women? We as the audience are implicated as well – after all, are we also not there to see Hannigan contort herself through increasingly extreme physical and vocal demands?
All of this would not matter if Hannigan did not also master the intricacies of Berg’s score. Since the premiere of this production, she has not only sung the role all over the world but has also conducted the Lulu Suite, which has resulted in a profound mastery of the score and her vocal management of the part. Her lyric soprano has retained its youthful freshness and easy high notes but has gained power particularly in the lower register, and she cannily rides the orchestration in the heavier moments of the score. Above all, she colours the text with intelligence whether speaking or singing, and brings a wonderful humour to the part – who would have thought that Lulu could be such a funny evening at the theatre?
Hannigan is beautifully supported by her colleagues, cast even stronger than in the premiere run. Bo Skovhus is near-ideal as Dr Schön and Jack the Ripper, at once repulsive and sexy. It’s a relief to hear someone actually sing the role rather than shouting it out, and Skovhus marries a deep understanding of the text with an impeccable legato. Making his role debut as Alwa, Toby Spence sounds better than ever, his clear tenor and sympathetic stage presence an ideal fit for the role. Rainer Trost’s Artist, however, nearly steals the show with his clarion tenor and physical fearlessness – I’d love to hear him take on Alwa one day.
Returning from the original run, Natascha Petrinsky’s Geschwitz is at once charismatic and sympathetic, clambering up and down the escalator in sky-high heels and wielding a plummy if not particularly well-controlled mezzo. Other standouts among the ensemble were Martin Winkler, brutal and sonorous as the Athlete, Lilly Jørstad, whose rich mezzo is one to watch, and Pavlo Hunka, far younger and in much better voice than the usual Schigolch.
Presiding over it all was Alain Altinoglu, bringing out the elegance, clarity and brutality of the score as needed. I’ve never heard La Monnaie's orchestra sound better, from the percussive brass interruptions of the prologue to the lush, Mahlerian final Adagio. These sonorities were married to a keen appreciation for the architecture of the score and sensitivity to the singers: I don’t think I’ve heard a more accurate account of the Act 3 ensemble. For a work as massive as Lulu, it’s rare that all the dramatic and musical elements come together like this – truly a performance for the ages.
