Mysterious nirvana Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' - reviewed by ROBERT ANDERSON '... the climaxes are prepared with meticulous cunning.'

Wagner's power in Tristan is such it would not matter if the producer had the whole cast standing on its head throughout. Of little concern, then, that the Barcelona Act 1 takes place in a closely riveted container ship, ploughing towards Cornwall on an apparently immobile sea, with its sailors stuck in the rigid attitude of Chinese tomb-warriors. The Act 2 torch hints comfortingly at a Guy Fawkes bonfire, requiring all Isolde's cloak to put it out, while the love-making must make do with a small rectangle of artificial grass and a watchful Brangäne somewhere at the top of a free-standing metal ladder. The whitewashed ward for Tristan's ravings in Act 3 is appropriate enough, and the dress-period is tactfully indeterminate.

The composer had mighty bother finding singers for the work. Nor was it auspicious that when Wagner eventually discovered the Schnorrs, his Tristan died soon after the opening performances in 1865, and Isolde took leave of her senses sufficiently to cause Wagner and Cosima irritation of commendable originality. The royal librarian at Munich catalogued the work as 'Musica theoretica', and even Berlioz could make nothing of the prelude. Tristan, then, is not to be tackled lightly, and it seems increasingly seldom that artists of sufficient stature can be cast in the main parts. It is no more than long experience to suspect the Barcelona pair may not prove ideal.

Continue >>

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.