Alban Berg wrote the opera Lulu, based on Wedekind’s plays about the same character as Pandora’s Box.
Berg’s Lulu is a three-act opera derived from Frank Wedekind’s dramas Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box. It follows the rise and destruction of Lulu, a character whose relationships expose the violence, desire, and hypocrisy of the society around her.
Berg composed the opera during the 1920s but died in 1935 before completing the score. The first two acts were performed in 1937, while the unfinished third act was later completed by Friedrich Cerha. The complete version received its premiere in 1979.
The opera is associated with the Second Viennese School and uses an intricate modernist musical language, including a twelve-tone row. Its connection to Pandora is indirect: Lulu is not the mythological Pandora, but Wedekind’s play title and Berg’s opera draw on the same symbolic idea of destructive forces being released. Richard Strauss and Kurt Weill were other important German-language composers, but they did not write this opera.