Wozzeck looks up – for from the very bottom of society, all that remains is a longing gaze upwards. He observes the people around him almost obsessively; they seem to have everything he can only dream of. Caught between superiors who bully him, driven by a sense of inferiority and a constant fear that his partner Marie might be unfaithful to him, Wozzeck seems like a human powder keg that is bound to explode at some point.

A person is (partly) shaped by their living conditions. But can a society that has elevated the law of the jungle to a brutal maxim and cut humanity out of its own value system produce nothing but monstrous perpetrators? Does life within a merciless system negate the question of individual responsibility? Ilaria Lanzino, making her debut at the MiR with Berg’s *Wozzeck*, consistently attracts attention with productions that present familiar material in interpretations that are as clever as they are extraordinary. The musical direction is in the hands of John Warner, who makes his debut as Principal Conductor with Berg’s complex score.

Wozzeck looks up – for from the very bottom of society, all that remains is a longing gaze upwards. He observes the people around him almost obsessively; they seem to have everything he can only dream of. Caught between superiors who bully him, driven by a sense of inferiority and a constant fear that his partner Marie might be unfaithful to him, Wozzeck seems like a human powder keg that is bound to explode at some point.

A person is (partly) shaped by their living conditions. But can a society that has elevated the law of the jungle to a brutal maxim and cut humanity out of its own value system produce nothing but monstrous perpetrators? Does life within a merciless system negate the question of individual responsibility? Ilaria Lanzino, making her debut at the MiR with Berg’s *Wozzeck*, consistently attracts attention with productions that present familiar material in interpretations that are as clever as they are extraordinary. The musical direction is in the hands of John Warner, who makes his debut as Principal Conductor with Berg’s complex score.