Like three of its five predecessors, Tate's recording of Lulu was recorded live, during three performances at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris in the autumn of 1991. The advantage is obvious: lengthy and detailed rehearsal, of a kind that would be perilously expensive in the context of an unsubsidized studio recording from scratch, has ensured that cast and orchestra are absolutely fluent. There is quite a lot of stage noise, mark you, and the production sounds as though it was a hyperactive one, with frequent rapid movement across the stereo image, but this is not too high a price to pay for a real sense that these people are genuinely reacting to each other, that as singers and as characters in the drama there is a chemistry between them.
Lulu herself is one of the most mercilessly demanding roles in all opera, as well as the reagent without which none of the piece's chemistry would work. A vocal personality of such vivid allure that it rivets the attention despite the absence of any stage picture, plus a voice that can untiringly scintillate up on the ledger-lines: no soprano has ever satisfied both demands to the full, perhaps none ever will, but Patricia Wise comes commendably close. Some of her high notes are effortful, some of the liberties she takes to establish Lulu's coquettishness are dubious (you get to know in advance which notes she's going to scoop up to), but the prerequisite of any performance of this opera, that the singer of the title-role should command both notes and stage (and everyone else upon it) is handsomely met. She is not as mesmerizing, not quite so expressive in every nuance of text and music as Teresa Stratas in Boulez's DG recording of the complete opera, but she is much more involving than Evelyn Lear's tart without much of a heart in Bohm's account (Acts 1 and 2 only).
Wolfgang Schone is an excellent Schon, less blackly malign than Boulez's Franz Mazura, less iron-hand-within-velvet-glove than Bohm's Fischer-Dieskau but, by the same token, more of a victim at the end of Act 1. In his reincarnation as Jack the Ripper he is not so terrifying as Mazura, more an efficient workman going about his trade, which has a chilling effectiveness of its own. Most Lulu casts have a few weak links: here they are Bodo Schwanbeck's worn and hectoring gravelly bass as the Animal Tamer/Athlete and, most surprisingly, Brigitte Fassbaender's Geschwitz, throatily vehement, overdoing the vocal acting and often singing far too loud: I have never known the closing pages of Act 3 less moving.
The Alwa is accurate and intelligent but, as usual, not the golden-voiced lyric tenor the part cries out for. No matter: he is much more than adequate, as are the rest of the cast; Hans Hotter, with rather few notes left in his voice and an occasionally cavalier way with those he does sing, is as characterful a Schigolch as ever. Tate's direction is beautifully lyrical, enjoying the sheerly voluptuous pages more than Boulez allowed himself to, but never losing control of the drama's momentum, the more remarkable since he is the first conductor in my experience to take the taxingly complex opening sequence of Act 3 at Berg's dangerously fast marked tempo.
The problem with this new Lulu, for me an unsurmountable one, is the obverse of its great advantage. Live recording has led in this case to a very confused orchestral focus. Important lines, indeed crucially important instruments like the vibraphone, piano and alto saxophone, are altogether too frequently obscured. Several times I lost my place in the score because what I could see and was expecting to hear was simply not audible. The outstandingly lucid recording of Boulez's performance is due at least in part to the fact that it was made after a series of staged performances but in a studio. Since Boulez's cast is an extremely good one the main reason for preferring the newcomer would be a preference for Tate's way with the score. Unfortunately it is just that aspect of the performance—how this or that scene or sequence is phrased, balanced, voiced—that is worst served by this recording.
Bohm's two-act Lulu, now re-coupled on three CDs with his Wozzeck, is a tempting bargain. For the price you get very beautiful and finely recorded orchestral sound, superb conducting and a pair of principal singers who intriguingly change roles between operas: Lear, the disappointing Lulu, becomes a first-rate Marie in Wozzeck, while Fischer-Dieskau, the best Schon ever, is a bit too subtle and poetic an artist for the brutalized and inarticulate Wozzeck. Bohm's Lulu was also recorded live, by the way, but escapes most of the pitfalls of the newcomer. So, on the whole, does Abbado's ferociously dramatic Wozzeck, a vivid demonstration that recording in the opera house can pack a huge theatrical punch. On that account and that of his cast (Hildegard Behrens, Franz Grundheber and not a weak link among the remainder) Abbado would still be my first choice for Wozzeck. For Lulu, Boulez still awaits a real challenger.'