Tristan! Isolde! in Munich!

This performance was a wonderful surprise. I went to see Nina Stemme’s Isolde, expecting not much more than the usual Festival mishmash out of the rest and worried about the prospects of Ben Heppner as Tristan. But we got a real, properly put together Tristan, and a damn good one at that.

Wagner, Tristan und Isolde. Bayerische Staatsoper, 7/27/2011. Production by Peter Konwitschny (revival), conducted by Kent Nagano with Nina Stemme (Isolde), Ben Heppner (Tristan), René Pape (König Marke), Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne), Alan Held (Kurwenal).

Peter Konwitschny’s production presents an eclectic, ambiguous aesthetic. The costumes are a mix of modern and medieval garb while Act 1 takes place on a modern (or at least twentieth-century) ship, Act 2 in front of a painted fairy-tale backdrop and on a silly yellow floral couch, and Act 3 in a stark modern space with a slideshow of photos from happier times. But the larger point is crystal clear. The upper, upstage part of the stage is the characters’ “reality” while Tristan and Isolde step forward, off this platform onto the apron of the stage to enter their own fantasy world. To illuminate their night in Act 2, visible Brechtian lights descend from above. The staging aims to be plausible and spontaneous and dramatic, downplaying the love potion and Marke’s wrath in favor of human empathy. It’s not that much to look at, but the thing is, it works, drawing you in at every moment.

This is thanks to the greatest asset of any Konwitschny production, the meticulous Personenregie he coaxes out of his premiere casts. The movement traces the motion more of the music than the text, giving his work a wonderful fluid quality. These details often can’t be quickly reconstructed for revivals, and my expectations for this festival revival were low (it premiered in 1998). But from the start I noticed that there was something happening with the direction. Bless the Bayerische Staatsoper, they actually got Konwtischny to come and rehearse a bit with this cast (he even took a bow at the end), and you could tell. From Brangäne flipping the pages of a magazine as the sailor sang his song on, it was elegant and integrated with the score. It was not as fearlessly physical as his Traviata, but this is Wagner singing.

(different cast)

The staging’s most unusual moment is during the Liebestod, where Isolde steps to the front of the stage and is joined by a revived Tristan. They both wear black. While Isolde might die in the text, in the world of the music and night she lives united with Tristan, and that’s what we see. The image had been foreshadowed with two English horn players at the beginning of the act. Wordless musicians, they also exist beyond the confines of the upstage space.

Kent Nagano conducted the excellent orchestra with restraint, clarity and controlled volume, a fine reading but a somewhat self-effacing one. The cast was about as all-star as it is possible to get. Nina Stemme is an astonishingly good Isolde. Her huge, dark voice is weighted towards the middle, but her high notes also cut through, she sings with an unwavering sense of the text and meaning of the music, and is an excellent actress. I doubt there is a better all-around Isolde today.

Ben Heppner is surely past his best days of singing, but pulled together a credible performance. I wouldn’t call it the triumph that a few Tweeters seemed to hear–at a half dozen or so spots everything threatened to fall apart in gurgly cracks, and he somehow derailed a bit of the Act 2 duet (skipping a phrase, I think?), making Stemme miss her next entrance. But he managed to recover each time and made it through to the end. That’s a higher compliment than it sounds like.

The biggest applause of the evening actually went to René Pape’s generous, honey-toned König Marke, who due to the usual Nationaltheater sightline problems I couldn’t see at all but sang with the kind of resonant authority and majesty that threatens to steal the opera. Ekaterina Gubanova as Brangäne got off to a muffled start but warmed up to be excellent if extremely Slavic in tone. Alan Held was a very good Kurwenal as well. A class act, all around.

This production is available on DVD with a different cast.

Photos copyright Bayerische Staatsoper/Wilfred Hösl (showing the cast from the DVD)

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Tristan und Isolde im Opernhaus Zürich (10.10.10)–Kurzfassung auf Deutsch

 Claus Guths Inszenierung von Tristan und Isolde im Opernhaus Zürich verarbeitet Wagners Affäre mit Mathilde Wesendonck, einer Amateur Dichterin und Frau eines Bankers aus Zürich (wo sowohl die Affäre als auch die Inszenierung statt fanden).  Tristan und Isolde entfliehen den steifen Sittlichkeiten der Spießbürgergesellschaft des 19ten Jahrhunderts, hinein in eine private Welt in der sich Vergangenheit und Zukunft sowie Fantasie und Realität beständig vermischen.  Es handelt sich hier nicht um ein Gesamtkunstwerk, sondern ehe eine komplizierte und intelligente Interpretation.  Es ist mehr ein verworrener, komplizierter Thriller, als eine Reise in das zeitlose Unbewusste.

Bernard Haitink leitete das ausgezeichnete Orchester des Züricher Opernhauses bei einem aufregenden und schönen, jedoch sehr lautem Auftritt.  Man konnte viele Feinheiten hören, aber nicht immer die Sänger.  Barbara Schneider-Hofstetter, als Ersatz für Waltraud Meier, zeigte zwar eine unermüdliche Isolde mit einer exzellenten Mittelstimme und guten Diktion, besitzt jedoch einfach nicht Meiers Charisma.  Der gesundheitlich angeschlagene Peter Seiffert sang Tristan mit einer unfeinen aber doch effektiven Deklamation in den ersten zwei Akten, scheiterte allerdings am dritten Akt mit fünfzehn Minuten stimmlosen Gekrächze.  Michelle Breedt als Brangäne, Matti Salminen als König Marke und besonders Martin Gantner als Kurwenal waren alle erstklassig.

Hier können Sie meine längere Kritik lesen (auf Englisch).  Danke an Christiane!
Bild: Michelle Breedt als Brangäne (Photo Suzanne Schwiertz/Opernhaus Zürich)

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Tristan und Isolde in Zürich: Neither mild nor leise

Claus Guth’s Opernhaus Zürich production of Tristan und Isolde is inspired by the events that inspired the opera: Wagner’s 1850s affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, which happened in, you guessed it, Zürich.  The result is a twisty journey through fantasy and memory, all wound up with 19th-century morality, and a worthy companion piece to Guth’s great Vienna Tannhäuser.  It’s totally fascinating, and a very different experience than your usual dreamy abstract Gesamtkunstwerk.

Bernard Haitink was also apparently inspired by Zürich for his conducting.  Apparently he took one walk around, decided it was too damn quiet, and what the city needed was a Tristan that was excellent and yet most notable for being tremendously loud.

Wagner, Tristan und Isolde.  Opernhaus Zürich, 10/10/10.  Production by Claus Guth (revival), sets and costumes by Christian Schmidt, lighting by Jürgen Hoffmann.  Conducted by Bernard Haitink with Barbara Schneider-Hofstetter (Isolde), Peter Seiffert (Tristan), Michelle Breedt (Brangäne), Martin Gantner (Kurwenal), Matti Salminen (König Marke)

Claus Guth’s production is set in a seemingly concrete 19th-century bourgeois world, its elegant furnishings and garden modeled on those of Zürich’s Villa Wesendonck (today an art museum), its situation loosely analogous to that of Mathilde Wesendonck’s affair with Wagner with her banker husband Otto in the König Marke role.  But Guth doesn’t push this parallel too far (and the premiere cast, pictured above, bears a much closer resemblance to the historical figures than the current one, pictured elsewhere in this post–though no photos involving Isolde have surfaced), and besides, he has other things on his mind as well.

It becomes apparent that this tidy world is not as literally realistic as it appears.  Brangäne and Isolde are visual doubles, with Brangäne seeming to represent the socially acceptable half of Isolde’s self, while the soprano half escapes into another world with Tristan.  In Act 1, as Isolde describes healing Tristan, Brangäne physically relives it, in the second act Brangäne wears a black dress to Isolde’s identical white one, and at the very end of the opera, Marke slowly takes Brangäne’s hand, as if Isolde had not just expired in front of them.  The characters wander through mirror-image and double rooms on a relatively simple turntable set used to effectively dizzying effect.

As Tristan and Isolde narrate Isolde’s earlier healing, Tristan relives it, lying bloody on Isolde’s bed, a position he will return to near the end of the opera.  Their dream life is recursive and ill-defined, an attempt to leave reality that inevitably fails.  The second act explores further alternate and parallel realities, as Tristan and Isolde chase each other through Isolde’s house, seemingly in the midst of a dinner party.  They sweep the place settings off a formal dining table, to collapse on top of it.  It is unclear what really happens and what is imagined as they wander through crowded rooms, unconscious of others, but then something breaks, and they are exposed, and Tristan forces Melot to stab him.  In Act 3, Tristan languishes with Kurwenal in a desolate, deserted streetscape, eventually managing to return to the dream world with Isolde.

It’s an immensely interesting and remarkably exciting production.  “Exciting” as in you genuinely can’t wait to see what is going to happen next.  Suspenseful, even.  This isn’t really a concept you often associate with Tristan stagings, I know.  They are supposed to help you submerge yourself in the well of the music, to forget the boundaries of sound and vision.  This one doesn’t do that, or at least it didn’t for me.  It isn’t a Gesamtkunstwerk, it’s an intricate reading of a text we already know.  There is friction between the text and the production; you can’t get upset because Act 1 doesn’t take place on a boat.  But Guth makes you rethink things you’ve seen many times before, possibly a textbook example of Regietheater.  As a Tristan I don’t think it’s for everyone.  But that’s the beauty of Regietheater, isn’t it?  It doesn’t presume to be for everyone, or for all time.

**

The focus of this performance was on an absence, that of erstwhile star Waltraud Meier, who walked out after a dispute with Bernard Haitink.  I can see why.  I thought that the tiny Zürich opera house would be a great place to hear an intimate account of the score (and excellent for Meier, whose voice is not of Nilssonian dimensions).  But I forgot to send the management an email about this and Haitink did just about the exact opposite, leading a very loud, exciting, yet fantastically detailed interpretation with this top-notch orchestra.  I’m not sure if he looked up at the stage once over the whole course of the evening.  He often drowned out the singers and was clearly more interested in making sure the viola arpeggios were sufficiently turbulent than anything to do with the dramatic action.  (Considering his number of vocal cues, I suspect the invisible prompter had a busy night.)  It sounded great, the orchestra did at least, but it isn’t my preferred style.

Barbara Hofstetter-Schneider was Meier’s short-notice replacement as Isolde, and a very good Isolde she was, too.*  She bravely took on Haitink’s super-orchestra and, most of the time, won, with an excellent dark-hued middle voice, somewhat less luxuriant top notes, and super diction at consistently high volume.  At the beginning of Act 1, I thought, she can’t do this all night.  But she did, with amazing stamina, right up to an on-pitch if short final note.  It was not subtle but that we wouldn’t have been able to hear that.  Her Isolde doesn’t have Meier’s charisma or heartbreaking intensity, but it was wonderfully sung and acted with honesty and dignity.  If this is what Wagner singing is like at regional German houses (her usual haunts), we’re missing out in the US.  (Zürich is a very small house, though, presenting different challenges.)

Peter Seiffert was announced as ill but sang anyways.  This was my second time around with his Tristan. The first, at the Met under Barenboim in 2008, was a shaky experience (I believe it was his role debut).  For the first act in Zürich, I thought he his interpretation had greatly grown.  While not the Heldentenor of one’s dreams his tone is alright, he fit into the production well enough and sang with confidence and expression, as much as he could under the orchestral circumstances.  In Act 2, his pitch and support began to falter and I began to dread Act 3.  With good reason, because sick or not, no one should be onstage sounding like that.  His vocal death preceded his character’s death by about 15 uncomfortable minutes and I hope he didn’t do any damage.

The supporting cast was uniformly strong.  Matti Salminen is as old as dirt and nothing needs to be said about his wise König Marke other than he sounded as amazing as ever.  Martin Gantner was almost unfair luxury casting as Kurwenal, terrifically sung and touchingly acted (during the opening of Act 3, he spent a long time despondently throwing beer caps into a boot).  Michelle Breedt was a lyrical but lovely Brangäne, sometimes covered by the mighty Haitink but floating her “Habet acht” perfectly.  The English horn player deserves specific mention here as well for a great solo, but the program did not identify him or her by name.

So not a definitive Tristan, but an awesome one, even without the reason I bought my ticket.  I do hope a tenor other than Seiffert will be singing the next time I see this opera, though.  And I think we should hope for a WWI Parsifal from Guth next.

All photos copyright Suzanne Schwiertz/Opernhaus Zürich

*Doesn’t the Isolde from this production premiere, Nina Stemme, currently have some time on her hands?  I know she does because I have a ticket for the Rusalka she canceled.  ‘Tis a shame we didn’t get her.  Not a spot on excellent Schneider-Hofstetter, but Stemme and Meier are together currently the last word in Isoldes as far as I’m concerned.

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