Alban Berg's second and last opera Lulu is one of the monuments of modernism, constructed around serial technique and containing scenes conceived of as Sonata-form, Suite and so on. The bliss of Andrew Davis's conducting in this classic Glyndebourne production is that we forget all of this--Davis doesn't gloss over the music's intellectual content, but that's not what we think about as we watch and listen. Part of the production's strength is the prodigious performance by Christine Schafer as Lulu--for once we believe in the character's sexual energy and power; and Schafer makes her real enough as a person that we largely forget the work's intrinsic misogyny. The rest of the cast are admirable too: Norman Bailey brings something perversely sweet to the disreputable painter Schigolch; Kathryn Harries makes the dying words of Lulu's lesbian lover Geschwitz one of the work's lyric high points; David Kuebler is equally powerful as Alwa. The final duet between Lulu and her destroyer Jack the Ripper is one of Wolfgang Schone's great moments, but he is equally good as Dr Schon, the man Lulu marries and kills. This is a performance of energy and beauty, matched by a simple but effective production.

On the DVD Lulu on disc is presented in disappointingly in NTSC format with a 4:3 picture ratio. Fortunately, the Dolby 2.0 digital sound is ideal for the fine detail of this complex score and these nuanced performances. There are subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. --Roz Kaveney

The bleakness of Berg's operatic masterpiece Wozzeck is relatively easy to bring off: the plot, after all, tells of a man who is bullied, cuckolded and mocked by the society around him. What are harder to realise are the gallows humour and pitch-black comedy--and it's those qualities, along with the brilliant acting and edge-of-seat orchestral playing, that make this 1987 Vienna Staatsoper staging a stunning televisual operatic production.

Everything works: the simple yet evocative sets translate effortlessly to the small screen, the pacing of the 15 short scenes is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and the singing is beautifully focussed. Baritone Franz Grundheber is vocally and dramatically outstanding as Wozzeck, cringing and shuffling around the stage in a bewildered hang-dog manner and yet never losing sight of the character's humanity. Hildegard Behrens (Marie) has rarely sounded better, and switches between Straussian lushness and spiky sluttishness with ease. The direction is also full of wonderful touches, such as Wozzeck squeezing the Captain's nose while he's shaving him (and making his voice sound like a kazoo), and the musicians of the on-stage band being fully integrated into the tavern scene. Ironic, emotionally rich, musically faultless--this one's got it all.

On the DVD: the production works beautifully on DVD, and bar one or two moments in the second tavern scene (Act 3, Scene 3) the voices rarely move out of microphone range. There are subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish and four trailers for other Arthaus DVD operas, but no other special features. --Warwick Thomson