Muted Madness

In addition to being one of the great operas of the twentieth century, Wozzeck is also one of the most resilient: between Georg Büchner’s devastating dramatic strokes and Berg’s endlessly rewarding score it can withstand nearly any directorial flight of fancy. Ole Anders Tandberg, who directed the new production that opened the Deutsche Oper’s new season, seems to have accepted this fundamental truth. Instead of his usual bleak humour and confrontational imagery, he opted for a low-key almost deferential approach in which the nightmare of existence was constructed slowly and methodically. As with Büchner’s drama, the force of Mr Tandberg’s staging came not from any one moment, but from the accumulation of cruelty and banality that formed the foundation of Wozzeck’s world. 

The relative restraint of the staging was all the more surprising…