In Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, the title character does not play an instrument in the prologue.
The opera opens with a Prologue in which an animal tamer presents animals to an audience. Lulu is not introduced as a musician there; she appears in the drama as a central woman whose relationships drive the plot. The prologue’s theatrical framing establishes the opera’s atmosphere of spectacle and objectification.
Lulu is based on Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Alban Berg composed the opera between 1929 and 1935, but he died before completing the orchestration of the third act. Friedrich Cerha later completed the score, and the complete three-act version premiered in 1979.
The title can lead readers to expect a direct musical version of the Pandora myth. Instead, Berg’s opera adapts the modern Lulu dramas. Its connection with Pandora lies chiefly in the source play Pandora’s Box and in the character’s association with fascination and destruction, not in a scene where she opens a mythic container or plays an instrument.