As Margret in Madrid
October 5, 2025Wozzeck is a huge undertaking for every artist, house, or orchestra. So, why is seemingly everyone playing it right now? The simple answer is that the piece was groundbreaking for modern opera when it premiered in Berlin in 1925. This year, 2025, marks its 100th anniversary.
Sadly, even after a century, the piece remains profoundly relevant today.
Steckt doch auch ein Stück von mir in seiner Figur, seit ich ebenso abhängig von verhassten Menschen, gebunden, kränklich, unfrei, resigniert, ja gedemütigt, diese Kriegsjahre verbringe. Ohne diesen Militärdienst wäre ich gesund wie früher.
Alban Berg
It will come as no surprise to those who have followed my professional journey that I have a soft spot for the music of the Second Viennese School. It’s incredibly challenging but so strong, and the more you get to know it, the more you see how dramatic and theatrical it is. In Wozzeck, Berg doesn’t just paint emotion and atmosphere; he renders entire rooms and landscapes with incredible detail.
I feel incredibly privileged to be singing in two separate Wozzeck productions over the next few months! I’m performing Margret now in Madrid with Maestro David Afkham and the kindest, most brilliant colleagues imaginable. And, in a month, I have my exciting role debut as Marie in Darmstadt, which I can’t wait for!
Photos by Rafa Martín, for OCNE, Orquestra y coro nacionales de España
When Alban Berg’s opera premiered in 1925, it broke new ground in both its content and musical structure. His first full-length opera, the three-act Wozzeck, based on the drama by Georg Büchner, is a forerunner of modern compositional techniques and is historically significant as the first full-length atonal stage work—that is, one free from any traditional harmonic structures.
Borrowed from Simon Chlosta‘s brilliant text.
Wozzeck is inspired by the true historical story of the soldier Johann Christian Woyzeck, who was executed for the murder of his mistress. The drama it’s based on, Büchner’s unfinished work, is actually titled Woyzeck.
The varying spelling in the opera’s title, Wozzeck, stems from an early edition of the drama. This edition was later heavily criticised due to numerous textual alterations. However, by the time Berg came across a more critical edition in 1920, his work was too far advanced, and he chose to stick with the older, now obsolete text.
Although Büchner’s play was written in 1837, shortly before his early death at the age of just 23, Woyzeck did not receive its first performance until 1913. A year later, Alban Berg attended the Vienna premiere, which immediately inspired him to write his opera.
The actual composition process, however, extended over several years. This delay was partly because Berg served as a clerk in the Austrian army between 1915 and 1918. He managed to complete the libretto in 1917 and began composing during the final two years of the war, but the opera was not completed until 1921. Following the performance of a few extracts, the official world premiere took place in December 1925 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.
In terms of content, Berg’s opera was groundbreaking because it focused on characters from the lowest social class as its protagonists—a rarity in musical theatre at the time.
Due to its complexity and technical difficulty, Wozzeck was initially considered hard to stage. Today, however, the opera is recognised as one of the most important contributions to 20th-century music history and is regarded as a key work of modernism.