By the all but universal verdict of the critics who have heard it, Alban Berg's atonal opera Wozzeck is the finest opera composed in the last 40 years.* Berg, an Austrian, finished Wozzeck in 1921, and it had immediate success in Europe. Oddly enough, in the U.S., it has had only one stage production (in 1931), and only a few doughty conductors have nibbled away at concert excerpts. One reason: its 15 scenes are costly to stage. More important, although Wozzeck is now more than 25 years old, most opera impresarios fear that, musically,...
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