Frank Wedekind created the character on whom Alban Berg’s opera Lulu is based.
Berg’s unfinished opera draws on Wedekind’s two dramas, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. Those plays center on Lulu, whose relationships, social position, and destructive consequences drive the action. Berg transformed the material into a large-scale modernist opera with a highly distinctive musical language.
The opera received its first complete performance in 1979, after Friedrich Cerha completed the orchestration of the unfinished third act. Its earlier history includes a 1937 performance of the two completed acts, conducted by Erwin Stein in a concert version.
Lulu’s connection with Pandora is literary and thematic rather than mythologically direct. Wedekind’s play Pandora’s Box supplied one of the source texts, while Berg’s opera follows the dramatic character Lulu instead of retelling Hesiod’s account of the Greek figure.