Lulu

Composer: Alban Berg
Librettist: Alban Berg
Company: Metropolitan Opera

Synopsis

It is the late 19th-century in an unnamed metropolis (usually taken to be Vienna). Lulu is married to Dr Goll, a physician. Lulu, who goes by the name Nelly, is having her portrait painted by Walter Schwarz, an artist who is in love with her. Dr Ludwig Schön, a newspaper editor and widower, and his son Alwa, a composer, are briefly present. As the artist pursues Lulu, they are surprised by her husband, who suffers a fatal stroke. Lulu marries Schwarz, and they appear to prosper with Schön's help. But Lulu is troubled when she discovers Schön has become engaged. The latter visits her and reveals how he has taken her from the street and raised her, but they have been in a relationship. He says that Schigolch, an elderly beggar, is her father. When Schön tells Schwarz about Lulu's past, he is horrified and he kills himself. Schön then puts Lulu on the stage, where she creates a scene over his fiancée and compels him to write a letter breaking off the engagement. Lulu marries Schön, who is jealous of her admirers, of which there are many, including the Countess Geschwitz and Alwa, on whom he eavesdrops, learning that Lulu poisoned his first wife. He gives her a gun and tells her to shoot herself. Instead she kills him, for which she is tried and imprisoned, but she contrives to escape after changing places with Countess Geschwitz. Alwa and Lulu flee to Paris, from where they once again flee, destitute, to London, where Lulu is obliged to work the streets, but brings home Jack the Ripper, who murders her.