Pierrot Lunaire

Arnold Schoenberg’s sacrilegious “Pierrot Lunaire” foretold a distortion of reality that has never left us.

The fire claimed the full range of Schoenberg’s groundbreaking compositions held there, from early Romantic pieces to his revolutionary 12-tone works and transformative masterpieces like “Pierrot Lunaire.”

“In Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot Lunaire,’ there’s a line that translates to ‘I breathe the air of other worlds.’

Berg’s score was written at the time his teacher Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” had their premieres.

Neither Schoenberg’s 20th century classic “Pierrot Lunaire” nor Kate Soper’s striking 2012 “Voices From the Killing Jar” is an opera, not that it matters.