"In the pit, Alejo Pérez emphasises the smallest details of this demanding and complex score. He chisels the motifs, makes the architecture perfectly legible (...) and takes up the sound material with full hands to make it more than just a casket for the voices: an additional figure that enters into dialogue with them," enthuses Diapason magazine about Alejo Pérez's conducting. Both the staging and the musical power of the performance won over audiences and critics at the premiere on 1 June. "Berg's uncompromising masterpiece is still a real hammer blow today. Simons and Pérez turn it into an insane performance - in every sense of the word," said the daily newspaper De Standaard.
"Berg's music appeals first to the gut and only then to the mind. No matter how confused or delusional Wozzeck may seem to us, we inevitably feel empathy for him," says Alejo Pérez about Alban Berg's opera, which he conducts at Opera Vlaanderen in nine performances until 29 June.
Since September 2019, Alejo Pérez has been shaping the sound culture of Opera Vlaanderen as Music Director and has set strong accents with new productions such as Pelléas et Mélisande, Lohengrin, Don Carlos, Tristan und Isolde and La Clemenza di Tito. Wozzeck is the third masterpiece of operatic literature he has conducted there this season, following a new production of Salome (directed by Ersan Mondtag) and concert performances of Norma.
Opera Vlaanderen
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