Caught up in greedy games and seedy schemes, and surrounded by lovers driven to despair, Lulu makes an inexorable rise to the highest levels of power, money and fame. But her descent is just as swift. Twenty years on, as the scarred Lulu looks back on her life, she faces a squalid history of sex, murder and violence.

Award-winning Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth has radically reworked Alban Berg’s unfinished 1934 opera for the 21st century, setting it against the backdrop of the US civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1970s and transporting audiences to the smoky jazz clubs of the Deep South. Neuwirth re-interprets Berg’s score for a jazz-inspired ensemble while also integrating her own distinctive voice to make a sound world that casts new light on the whole opera.

This new production is conducted by leading contemporary music specialist Gerry Cornelius and staged by the acclaimed British director John Fulljames, with The Orchestra of Scottish Opera.

A co-production with The Opera Group, Scottish Opera, Bregenzer Festspiele and Young Vic in association with the London Sinfonietta.

Co-commissioned by The Opera Group and Komische Oper Berlin.

‘Neuwirth is a shrewd composer with a bold imagination.’
Financial Times