Wozzeck

I've just finished watching Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, and I think my musical horizon has just been stretched a hundred times. This is the only atonal opera I have watched (there are very few atonal operas out there anyway), and it completely erases all the prejudices I had against atonal music before. Here is a list of previous prejudices and my current opinions:

1. Atonal music is incomprehensivable - this is true only if you do not "listen". The opera, which is a marriage of words and music, forces the listener to listen when there are no words, forces the listener to understand the scene without resorting to lingustic means. The music isolated from the words in Berg's opera is absolutely amazing; no longer is one hooked onto the traditional musical aspect of conventional harmony. In Berg's opera, everything matters. it is not just about harmony and resolution; melodic curve, dissonances, rhythms, syncipation, etc all contribute to the power of the music. The near-tonal Mahlerian melody nearing the end of the opera is even more powerful in the general atonal and dissolutional context.
2. Atonal music is boring - this is only because one does not understand and listen the strange musical language. If one understands the music, then the music is no longer boring.
3. Atonal music works only for psychological scenes - ultimately it is all about the imagination of the composer. Alban Berg uses atonality to country songs, waltzes and lullabies, and they work surprisingly well.
4. Richard Strauss is the triumph of the opera form - Strauss was good, taking Wagnerian opera up a notch; but Berg is even better, taking all that Strauss developped, adding Schoenberg's atonality, mixing that up with Expressionism to create a very powerful opera.
5. Atonal music sounds like noise - again, this is true only if one is not listening.

Now I want to watch Schoenberg's Moses und Aaron and Berg's Lulu.