Carrie Cracknell interview: 'I'm no opera expert, but I didn't hesitate to take on Wozzeck "I'm no opera expert, but I didn't hesitate for a moment before accepting," she says. It helped that I instantly realised that Berg was such a master dramatist that much of the work was going to be done for me before I even started rehearsing. Every note of the music drives the story forward, which makes directing in some respects quite simple. Plus I've got a fantastic cast and conductor in Ed Gardner. What isn't quite so simple is the way that the further down the line you get in rehearsal, the more imperative the musical aspects of the show become, leaving the director in the background. "So I'm working much quicker than I normally would," Cracknell adds, "trying to feed texture and detail into the text before it's too late." Her vision of Wozzeck may well prove controversial and, as befits its grim subject matter, it certainly won't offer an easy ride. Berg based his opera on a fragmented play by Georg Büchner, written in the 1830s and set in a German garrison town, where the soldier Wozzeck is struggling to keep his sanity in the face of exploitation by his superiors and the breakdown of the relationship with his common-law wife, whom he murders. Because she wants "to animate and politicise the piece," Cracknell has decided to avoid the overtly Expressionistic approach adopted by many previous stagings. Broadly speaking, I want to unlock a real world in which these characters live. But there's also a sense that the opera moves deeper into Wozzeck's nightmare world of paranoia as it progresses, and I want to suggest that, too. The setting will be recognisably that of modern Britain, in which Wozzeck is a squaddie failing to make sense of the world. Shane Meadows's gritty films of social and emotional deprivation have been one strong point of reference for Cracknell and her designer, Tom Scutt. What we're exploring is the idea of soldiers who have returned from a spell of duty in Afghanistan and then face difficulties reintegrating into the community after experiencing the traumas of war. I was very struck by some terrible statistics about the number of post-conflict suicides exceeding the number of deaths in battle. Cracknell talks with charm and fluency, but there's no mistaking the steel beneath and, as I recall from her time at the Gate, she's no pushover when she's up against it. And whether she emerges as opera's next big thing or not, she's already got the next year mapped out, with shows at the Young Vic and the Royal Court (where she will become associate director in Vicky Featherstone's new women-weighted regime), and a project at the National Theatre's Shed. Further ahead, she has a feature film in her sights. Take it from me, you will be hearing more about Carrie Cracknell. Wozzeck" opened at the London Coliseum (020 7845 9300) on May 11