Wozzeck’s Nightmare

The Canadian Opera Company is just finishing up their run of one of the 20th Century’s most intriguing operas, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (1925), adapted from Georg Büchner’s play Woyzeck. It is a three-act atonal opera that chronicles the tragic descent of Franz Wozzeck, a poor soldier in a 19th-century German town.

Tormented by poverty, military oppression, and betrayal, Wozzeck endures exploitation by a sadistic Captain, a callous Doctor who uses him for medical experiments, and his lover Marie, who has an affair with a charismatic Drum Major. As Wozzeck’s mental stability unravels, plagued by apocalyptic visions, he murders Marie in a jealous rage and drowns himself while trying to hide the murder weapon, leaving their young son alone in a society indifferent to his fate. Through its dissonant score and stark portrayal of class injustice, psychological torment, and despair, Wozzeck remains a searing critique of dehumanizing systems.

What could be more appropriate to stage such a spectacle in the spring of 2025, and in Toronto, the urban heart of Canada, at that? Although I doubt seriously if there is any conscious correlation with what is going on in present-day Canada and the choice to produce this particular opera on a Canadian stage, it does give credence to the Jungian concept of “synchronicity” as it is almost uncanny that such a thing would happen. Wozzeck and its dark, despairing message of societal collapse and upper class dominance and control are apropos for this time, Canada or not.

Consider, if you will, that in January of 2025, Policy Horizons Canada, a federal government think tank under the Employment and Social Development Canada portfolio, released a report titled Future Lives: Social Mobility in Question¹. This report envisions Canada in 2040 as a society where upward mobility is "almost unheard of," and most people are stuck in the socioeconomic conditions of their birth, with many facing downward mobility. Some of the things it “presents” are pretty horrific—and are about as bad as you can imagine. For example, society reaching a point where the “low class” (us, no doubt, otherwise known as “useless eaters”) have become a neo-hunter-gatherer society, which partakes in hunting, fishing, and foraging on public lands. So, what does this have to do with an opera written by a German composer back in 1922? Read on.

I was excited to treat myself to a performance of this opera this past week. I had never seen it before (although I was very much aware of its existence), so I was looking forward to a very dark treat! Little did I know how concurrent this opera is with what is happening in our present world. Although written over 100 years ago, it is chillingly relatable to current times.

As a composer trained in 12-tone technique during my conservatory years, I felt the raw power of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck when I first heard its dissonant passages. Its atonal score, a web of fractured melodies, captures the chaos of a world betraying its most vulnerable populace, and of a world socially collapsing right before its audience’s eyes. Everything about it is dark, so dark, in fact, it is mesmerizing.

As I watched it, I couldn’t help but correlate the spectacle on stage with what we are currently going through globally. In fact, it is rather odd how obvious this was. I kept thinking of the aforementioned report released in Canada recently—and how the visuals, sound, and content of this Wozzeck production paralleled the prediction found in the report. The class struggle in Wozzeck, for example, is vividly depicted through Franz Wozzeck’s interactions with the Captain, a smug embodiment of bourgeois privilege. Wozzeck, a lowly soldier, shaves the Captain, a degrading task that highlights his subservience. The Captain taunts him with cruel condescension: “You’re a good fellow, Wozzeck, but you have no morality!” He mocks Wozzeck’s poverty and the illegitimacy of he and Marie’s child.

The Captain, in his polished uniform, represents the elite’s casual disdain for the working class, his power unearned but absolute. This dynamic reflects today’s stark class divides, where the wealthy thrive while the poor (and not so poor!) struggle, as envisioned in the aforementioned prediction of elites hoarding riches while the destitute hunt the local parks for meat in order to survive. The Captain’s taunts are the voice of a system that blames the poor for their plight, ignoring structural inequities, much like modern policymakers who dismiss the underclass while enacting policies that favour the rich. Wozzeck’s quiet submission—“Yes, Captain”—is the resigned cry of every person trapped in exploitation, their labour sustaining the elite’s comfort yet earning them only derision.

The Doctor in Wozzeck is a chilling symbol of scientism—the worship of science as a modern deity, replacing religion with a cold, rationalist faith that dehumanizes. He subjects Wozzeck to cruel experiments, feeding him a diet of beans to test physiological theories, and chastises him for urinating outside on the street: “What? Against the wall, like a dog?—I’ll immortalize myself with this discovery!” Berg’s score, with its mechanical, staccato rhythms, underscores the Doctor’s detachment, his voice rising in self-aggrandizement while Wozzeck’s mental anguish—visions of a burning sky—goes ignored.

This soul-detachment mirrors today’s pharmaceutical fascism, where the medical industry pushes vaccines or medications as universal solutions, prioritizing profit over patient well-being. Wozzeck’s Doctor’s godlike hubris prefigures technocracy’s rise, where data-driven policies—think algorithms dictating healthcare or social credit systems—treat humans as variables, not individuals. Scientism elevates figures like biotech moguls to divine status, their “evidence-based” decrees echoing the Doctor’s boast of immortality, while the poor, like Wozzeck, become test subjects, their bodies exploited for scientific gain. The recent “human experiments” with the Covid vaccine is a perfect example of this exploitation, leaving the vulnerable as mere data points in a technocratic machine.

Wozzeck’s destitution as a member of the poor class is a soul-crushing reality, his poverty not just material but existential, stripping him of agency and hope. Wozzeck laments to Marie, “We poor people! It’s all money, money!”—his voice is a raw cry of powerlessness. He earns extra pennies through degrading tasks—shaving the Captain, enduring the Doctor’s experiments—but these only deepen his alienation, his life becomes a cycle of humiliation.

The elite’s theft of Wozzeck’s only love, Marie, comes through the Drum Major, a dashing symbol of class privilege. Marie, seduced by the Drum Major’s finery, succumbs to his advances, her longing for escape from poverty outweighing her loyalty to Wozzeck: “What a man! Like a lion!”

Upon learning of Marie’s infidelity, Wozzeck’s descent into murder is the tragic culmination of his destitution and betrayal, his fractured mind pushed beyond endurance by a society that has stripped him of everything. Tormented by Marie’s dalliance, the Captain’s mockery, and the Doctor’s experiments, Wozzeck’s sanity unravels. By a moonlit pond, he confronts Marie, his jealousy and despair erupting: “You’ve been with him!” Berg’s music, a slow, obsessive passacaglia, tightens like a vise, each note driving Wozzeck to stab Marie, her death marked by a chilling orchestral scream.

This act is not just personal but systemic—Wozzeck, dehumanized by class oppression and scientific exploitation, lashes out against a world that has caged him. His subsequent drowning, as he wades into the pond to hide the knife, is a final surrender. This tragedy resonates with today’s underclass, where systemic neglect—think housing crises, wage stagnation, vaccine mandates, taxation, the world going to hell in a handbasket—drives desperation, as seen in rising depression, anxiety, addiction, or even suicide. Although this sort of intense despair is not entirely with us at the moment, the predictions for 2040 are deeply disturbing. They conjure an image of a scavenging subclass and warn of more such tragedies, where the elite’s indifference breeds rage and ruin.

Wozzeck’s narrative, through Berg’s atonal lens, is a requiem for the mid and lower classes, its dissonant cries echoing in our technocratic age. The Captain’s elitism mirrors policymakers who ignore the underclass, while the Doctor’s scientism prefigures pharmaceutical overreach and technocratic control. Wozzeck’s destitution, his love stolen by the elite’s allure, reflects the possibility of a future dystopia, where the poor are left to scavenge for a meaningful life while elites thrive.

Wozzeck’s murder of Marie, a desperate act of a broken man, warns of the violence brewing in a society that betrays its own. As Wozzeck’s son sings “hop, hop,” I see our present day children, poisoned by a world of corporate greed and scientific hubris, their innocence as fleeting as Berg’s haunting melody. Although much of this literalism, such as a broken man murdering his unfaithful wife, is (at least for now) metaphoric, the opera Wozzeck certainly can be seen as a warning of things to come.

In the final moments of the opera, Wozzeck and Marie’s child rides a hobby horse, singing “hop, hop” as he plays, oblivious to the horror unfolding around him. His mother, Marie, lies murdered; his father, Wozzeck, has drowned in a pond of his own despair. A playmate callously announces, “Hey! Your mother is dead!” and the boy, too young to grasp the tragedy, follows the others to gawk at her body. The curtain falls on this image of innocence abandoned, with Berg’s dissonant orchestra fading into silence—a silence that screams of societal betrayal. This haunting scene, written a century ago, feels like a prophecy of our times, where children are left to inherit a world poisoned by neglect, greed, and systemic failure.

Today, our children play not on hobby horses but on smartphones, scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, unaware of the toxins seeping into their minds and bodies. They face a barrage of betrayals: vaccine schedules pushed beyond reason, raising fears of harm over health; social media algorithms that prey on their insecurities, driving anxiety and depression; pornography normalized by a click, warping their understanding of love; and pollution—air, water, microplastics—choking their future. Like Wozzeck’s son, they are innocent yet not untouched by neglect. Parents, crushed by economic precarity or distracted by digital noise, struggle to shield them, just as Marie and Wozzeck, broken by poverty, failed their son. “Be quiet, boy!” Marie snaps in the opera, her lullaby to her son turning to frustration—a cry echoed by modern parents overwhelmed by a system that offers no respite.

The Canadian government’s recent report casts this betrayal in stark relief. It envisions a Canada where elites hoard wealth while the poor resort to hunting animals to survive—a dystopia where children, like Wozzeck’s son, inherit a world stripped of hope. The irony is bitter: this forecast comes from the same Liberal Party that elevated Mark Carney, a technocratic titan, to Prime Minister just a few days ago. Carney, with his Goldman Sachs pedigree and central banker polish, promises economic salvation, much like the opera’s Doctor, who boasted of “immortalizing” himself through experiments on Wozzeck’s body. But will Carney’s policies—geared toward trade wars and corporate tax cuts—address the fissures threatening our children? Or will they widen the chasm, leaving the next generation to scavenge in a dystopian wasteland?

Wozzeck’s child, alone on his hobby horse, is a mirror to our own. He’s neglected not just by his parents but by a society that dehumanizes the masses, from the Doctor’s cold experiments to the Captain’s cruel taunts.

Today, our children are betrayed by institutions that prioritize profit over protection—Big Tech’s addictive platforms, Big Pharma’s relentless mandates, and governments that ignore the importance of God-given human rights. The opera’s final silence asks us: Can we break this cycle of despair, or will we abandon our children to a future as bleak as Wozzeck’s son’s? As Canada, as well as the rest of the world, barrels toward 2040, we must confront this question, lest our children’s “hop, hop” becomes a requiem for innocence lost.

[If you live in Toronto or near by, you can still catch this stunning performance of Wozzeck at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. It runs until May 16. Check out the website here.]

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1. https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2025/01/10/future-lives-social-mobility/index.shtml