Take Lady Sings the Blues without the drugs, add The Color Purple and long gold fringing, stir in some blaxploitation, and you may end up with something not dissimilar to American Lulu, composer Olga Neuwirth's new interpretation of Alban Berg's Lulu.

Berg's original, based on Wedekind's 1890s play, brought the action forward to the 1930s. Neuwirth places it in the 1950s and 1970s and moves it from Germany to New Orleans and New York.

The orchestra is on the stage, behind the acting space defined by the fringed curtain, on which Finn Ross's video installation is projected - bars evoking a cage or prison, a timeline, cityscape or silhouettes of men. Voiced quotations from civil rights movement speeches are interspersed throughout - sometimes suspending the action.

Lulu sells her body to live, marrying - and killing - husbands as well as running lovers on the side. She is also an exotic dancer. Over the course of 100 minutes, we see her negotiate her way through the inevitable tangles.

Her first husband, the Professor, dies of a heart attack on seeing her with the Photographer Paul Curievici. In turn, as her second husband, he shoots himself, when Dr Bloom explains he has been having an affair with Lulu since she was twelve.

Donald Maxwell is a strong Bloom (now her third husband), managing even to sing in an American accent. His son, Jimmy, is sung by Jonathan Stoughton, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Robbie Coltrane in Tutti Frutti, with quiff and drape jacket.

Angel Blue has a lissome voice, which lilts, but also belts out top notes. There's a gorgeous moment where she is singing with the men in ensemble behind - most of the singing is the to and fro of conversation.

As she navigates Lulu's relationships, she becomes less deferential, except when faced with the threat of violence. Her treatment of jazz singer Eleanor, who loves her and gets her out of jail for the murder of Bloom, is callous. Jacqui Dankworth's jazz voice, using a microphone, contrasts with the power of Blue's. The poignancy of Eleanor's riposte - You've destroyed my dignity - is intense.

Robert Winslade Anderson as Clarence, the long-term boyfriend-pimp, wears a minstrel-y tailcoat over a singlet and white slacks, in a nod to the part's origins as a ringmaster. He strolls on and off, usually at inopportune moments for the other characters, and handles the music with aplomb.

Neuwirth has adapted and re-orchestrated the music for the first two acts, while the third act music - the jazz singing and an R&B feel in particular - is her own. Genuine theatre organ music is faded in and out of the live orchestra, ably conducted by Gerry Cornelius.

Magda Willi's design and John Fulljames' direction create a tight, almost claustrophobic atmosphere on the stage, with Lulu's scope for movement limited - she rarely leaves the oval within the fringing.

But, despite Neuwirth's protestations in the programme notes, surely putting a scantily-clad woman on stage to make a point about putting scantily-clad women on stage is at best paradoxical, if not hypocritical.

American Lulu is co-produced by The Opera Group, Bregenzer Festspiele, Scottish Opera and the Young Vic in association with the London Sinfonietta. It was co-commissioned by Komische Oper Berlin and The Opera Group.