Wozzeck

Wozzeck (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔtsɛk]) is the first opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg, created between 1914 and 1922 and premiered on 14 December 1925 at the Berlin State Opera. Based on Georg Büchner's play Woyzeck (1836), it depicts a soldier's tragic slide into madness and murder amid militarism and oppression. Berg's expressionist musical language and innovative approach to musical form heightened the opera's psychological realism. He used atonality and leitmotifs to show individuals' emotional and existential plight under forces of authority.