WNO

The Welsh National Opera's production of Alban Berg's opera "Wozzeck" was stupendous. Though the opera is, as Geoff Brown in The Times put it, "still a prickly customer after 84 years", the performance was excellent in every respect: the singing, the design, the production by Richard Jones, everything.
For me the feature that makes me not go completely overboard is the music itself: Alban Berg was a student of Schonberg's and it shows. The twelve tone scale stuff is, to my ears, still difficult to enjoy and though Berg's music seems to be a mixture of 12 tone with more tonal music, it still jars.
However, it was an enjoyable experience since it is a dramatic opera with elements that are pathetic, horrifying, tragic and at times quite scary and the acting of the principals was superb.
Quite frankly I never thought the WNO capable of such wonderful work. I have been disappointed in the past by many operas they have staged - "Salome" recently was a big disappointment, and "Hansel and Gretel" though musically thrilling was, I thought, rather dull in performance and design - I had formed the opinion that everything they did was rather second rate. This performance of "Wozzeck" dispelled all such thoughts. Now they can stand tall with the best in the country, if not the world.
Next year Wagner. Something to be looked forward to now.