Berg: Wozzeck (DVD)

This is a rare instance where director, conductor and singers unite to create an unforgettable performance. Filmed at the Bolshoi in 2010, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production highlights Wozzeck’s alienation by placing him in a contemporary world of dislocated relationships and depersonalising technology. The Captain and Doctor are no such people, but role-playing to escape the tedium of their lives, and Wozzeck and Marie are used by them in a desultory fashion until they too are sucked into the emotional void that proves their fate. Tcherniakov achieves this by detailed Personenregie in a doll’s house setting that enables a cinematic focus on each character and scene in turn.

Georg Nigl (Wozzeck), Mardi Byers (Marie), Maxim Paster (Captain), Pyotr Migunov (Doctor) & Roman Muravitsky (Drum-major), Orchestra & Chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre, Teodor Currentzis, direction.