Lulu from Salzburg in a few bullet points ...

I am in Salzbourg for a few days and attended yesterday Lulu. I am not on Concertonet duties but cannot escape the habit of leaving the place with a list of comments:

• 6 Women on the pit, times have changed in the VPO
• the veterans are a formidable force: Grundheber in Schigolch and Zeidnick as the Prince, if some of the shine of the voice has gone, they do so much with words
• Surprisingly lively and "entertaining" production of act 3 with singers on the hall, 2 adjectives I would not have thought to use for Lulu with a fair amount of jokes in spoken dialogues (fake-ushers asking Schigloch for his ticket ...)
• Act 2 central settings was around a pyramid which became somewhat tiring after a while. While I am there, the "menagerie" of the prologue was not really staged, the trainer was in front of a multi-colored curtain and this just did not worked well
• Solid conducting of M Albrecht whom I did not knew before, bringing particular clarity and order in Act 1
• The 3 act version is now really established and it enables to preserve Berg's symmetry but there are notable differences in the orchestration, more piano in the beginning of Act 3 and at later phases more emphasis on double-basses
• After a tentative start, P Petibon grew into the role but memories of C Schäfer are hard to forget, strong performance of M Volle

Do I need to add, what an outstanding masterpiece this is.

PS: the singers distributed fake Lulu - Salzburg Festival logo-ed E(u)ros bills during act 3. Here is a scan of them: