Alban Berg: Wozzeck

The two operas Wozzeck and Lulu, which were left unfinished, are among the outstanding testimonies of 20th century music theatre because of their compositional perfection and their close connection to important literary models. In April 1914 Alban Berg witnessed the Vienna premiere of Georg Büchner’s drama fragment Woyzeck, which premiered in Munich in November of the previous year. Berg began almost immediately afterwards with the composition, which he completed in October 1921 and the instrumentation of which he completed in April 1922. Since then the opera has been staged again and again. Especially in Vienna new Wozzeck standards were set.