Lulu

Berg was familiar with Wedekind's Erdgeist by 1903, when he was 19. He also saw Die Büchse der Pandora in 1905 in a production by Karl Kraus on 29 May, and was inspired by the introductory speech that Kraus delivered on that occasion. In Wedekind's two Lulu plays, now often performed together under that title, Erdgeist forms the basis for the act 1 and act 2, scene 1, of the opera culminating in her shooting Dr. Schön, while Die Büchse der Pandora forms the basis for the rest of act 2 and act 3, Lulu's imprisonment, escape and subsequent decline and murder. Berg did not begin work on Lulu until 1929, after he had completed his other opera, Wozzeck. Thanks to Wozzeck's success Berg had economic security that enabled him to embark on a second opera. But life in the musical world was becoming increasingly difficult in the 1930s in both Vienna and Germany due to rising antisemitism and the Nazi cultural ideology that denounced the music of Berg, Webern, and others. Even to have an association with someone Jewish could lead to denunciation, and Berg had studied with the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg. Wozzeck's success was short-lived, as theatre after theatre succumbed to political pressure and refused to produce it, Erich Kleiber's 30 November 1932 production being the last, while sets and scenery were systematically destroyed. Wozzeck was also banned in the Soviet Union as "bourgeois". Berg found that opportunities for his work to be performed in Germany were growing scarce,…

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