It is unlikely that there will ever be a totally
flawless performance or recording of
Tristan und Isolde. Apart
from the fact that the two leading roles are among the most strenuous
in the repertoire, any weak link in the rest of the cast or the orchestra
will inevitably destroy the illusion that the composer sought to conjure
of the overwhelming power of love to conquer even death. Even in the
recording studio it is difficult to create this, and on stage it is
almost impossible to find two singers who can at the same time be convincing
young lovers and yet encompass the sheer physical, musical, emotional
and intellectual demands of the music.
The main reason for anyone to invest in this DVD is also certainly the
most controversial one - the assumption of the role of the heroine by
Dame Gwyneth Jones. She sang the role many times on stage (including
at Bayreuth), but never set it down commercially. So far as I am aware
this is the only available recording of her in the part. It has to be
said that her well-known faults are also much in evidence in this performance,
made late in her career. The high notes remain true and ringing, and
her soft but dramatically inflected singing is as good as ever. Sadly,
the vibrato when she pushes the tone in her middle register becomes
distressing during the Narration. Her
legato singing in the Love
Duet is poorly tuned. Her delivery of her solo after Tristan’s
death is unsteady. She is at her worst in the address to ‘Frau
Minne’ preceding the extinguishing of the torch, where the sustained
notes find her delivery seriously flawed. Rodney Milnes once described
her voice in the pages of
Opera (discussing a performance of
Elektra) as “generous” by which he explained that
he meant that she “gave us three notes for every one” -
these may not have been his exact words - I don’t have the quote
to hand - but the phraseology was something like that. That is cruel
as well as slightly unfair - her unsteadiness consists of a coming and
going of the tone rather than a movement off the note - but one is sometimes
painfully aware here of a voice not always under control. By no stretch
of the imagination can she be seen as a young princess - a “spruce
colleen” as the subtitles engagingly describe her - when her elderly
husband, despite his make-up, is clearly a good ten years younger than
she is.
By her side René Kollo, also in his fifties at the time of this
performance, comes out of the performance rather better. He recorded
the role in Carlos Kleiber’s studio set, and also for the Bayreuth
production by Ponnelle conducted by Daniel Barenboim. His voice was
never really a natural for the part, a lyric tenor pushing his voice
rather than a natural
heldentenor. In his later years he too
developed a wobble that could be distressing, but there is not too much
evidence of that here although he sometimes has to deliver some of the
more dramatic lines in a sort of
Sprechstimme - rather more than
a ‘Bayreuth bark’ - in order to get the words across. He
too hardly looks young - he gave a much better impression ten years
earlier at Bayreuth - but the voice here is still largely intact. Although
in the final Act his tendency to fall into
Sprechstimme becomes
endemic - for example, in his delivery of the line “Wie, hör
ich das Licht?” which departs wildly from Wagner’s indicated
notation - the dramatic intensity is thrilling.
Also dramatically thrilling is Robert Lloyd as the betrayed husband.
He gives his long monologue all the pathos and nobility that the music
demands, and generates a vivid sense of excitement in the closing scenes
of the Second Act. The way he reacts with his back to Tristan’s
recognition of his treachery is histrionic art of the highest order.
Gerd Feldhoff as Kurwenal also is a very good actor, and shades his
voice down to the merest whisper at lines such as “Hat dir der
Fluch entführt?” He cannot ride the orchestral storm at the
climaxes with as much ease as would be ideal, but he is never less than
musical. Hanna Schwarz is more predictably excellent as Brangaene, but
her delivery of the first line of her offstage warning displays an unexpected
quiver in the voice which suggests that she may not have been able to
hear the orchestra clearly - she was better in the earlier Bayreuth
DVD. Again she is a good actress, with plenty of sympathy towards her
mistress during the First Act. Peter Edelmann is a baritone rather than
a tenor Melot, and his higher notes do not sound comfortable. Clemens
Biber is a good Seaman in his opening solo, but Uwe Peper unfortunately
goes off the note during his short scene with Kurwenal at the beginning
of Act Three.
It is usual in reviews to deal with the matter of the staging first,
but with this DVD it becomes less significant. The 1980 production by
Götz Friedrich is a pretty dour affair, despite some minimal but
evocative scenic designs by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. One does
not know how much of Friedrich’s original direction remained by
the time of this 1993 performance, but for too much of the time there
is a serious lack of dramatic involvement by the singers - they simply
stand and deliver - and there is also evidence of some routine, as when
Isolde reacts to the cries of the sailors - just before Kurwenal’s
entrance -
before their voices are actually heard. Friedrich
is to be commended for his willingness to allow the principals to remain
still when there is nothing dramatic for them to do, but some of his
directorial decisions are odd. If Isolde has delivered her Narration
in Tristan’s hearing, actually directing her curse to his face,
there seems no reason for her afterwards to insist that he should come
to see her. If Kurwenal has had to help Brangaene to separate the lovers
at the end of the same Act, why does he then address Tristan with such
bombastic indifference half a minute later?
We are used to Friedrich’s habit of staging the preludes to Wagner
operas, but the long Prelude to Act One with Isolde sitting impassively
onstage does nothing to illuminate the music at this point. He does
however appreciate the distinction between night and day which is one
of the philosophical ideas underpinning the action, plunging the lovers
into darkness immediately after they have drunk the cup which they imagine
contains poison. His production of the long orchestral passage at this
point, always a matter of difficulty, has sensitivity and understanding.
This makes it all the more reprehensible that he and the conductor connive
in the extensive cut in the opening section of the Love Duet, where
the lovers discuss the symbolic meanings of light and darkness which
underlie the heart of the drama. Possibly it was done to spare the voices
of his ageing principals, but it remains anathema nevertheless. Otherwise
Friedrich thankfully adheres fairly closely to Wagner’s scenario,
and despite the rather barren nature of the production - not helped
by the gloomy lighting - it does not misrepresent the composer’s
intentions in the way that Ponnelle did at the end of his Bayeuth production.
The sets for the Lehnhoff production at Glyndebourne (like those of
Ponnelle) have more sense of sheer beauty, which is after all another
of Wagner’s requirements for this most ecstatic of scores.
The English subtitles, derived from William Mann’s translation
originally written for and published by the Friends of Covent Garden
in 1968, contain some amusing typographical errors - I noticed “wither”
for “whither” and “trough” for “through”
- which disturb concentration at just the wrong moments. The translation
itself is at once too literal and too free in tone - “Der Welt-Atems
wehendem All” simply does not have the proper transcendent atmosphere
when it is rendered as “The cosmic breath’s gusty totality.”
The booklet synopsis is rather brisk, concentrating on the stage action
rather than the psychological interplay of the drama. It manages to
dismiss the whole of Tristan’s ravings in Act Three - lasting
over half an hour on stage - in just one sentence: “Tristan’s
thoughts turn to all that has happened; suddenly, the shepherd’s
joyful melody sounds.” Well, yes; but rather a lot happens before
that. The disc comes with no extras.
The conductor, Jiři Kout, is efficient rather than inspired; but
he does nothing unmusical or wilful, and the orchestra, by and large,
plays well for him. The audience, quiet as mice while the curtain is
up and rapturous in their applause after the end of each Act, are clearly
transfixed by the performance.
This DVD is principally of value, as I observed at the outset, for the
performance of Gwyneth Jones. She may have been frustratingly uneven
as an artist, but her delivery of the climax and the closing bars of
the
Liebestod, steady and rapt, makes one realise again just
how very great a singer she could be when things went right.
For a first choice on DVD, provided that one can tolerate the cut in
the Love Duet, Nina Stemme’s assumption of the role at Glyndebourne
is more reliable. If one insists on having the opera complete, Ponnelle’s
beautiful Bayreuth staging is excellent. This despite his irritating
gloss at the end portraying Isolde’s arrival as the culmination
of Tristan’s hallucinations, which becomes more annoying with
repetition. By comparison with that performance Gwyneth Jones knocks
spots off the steady but comparatively uninvolved Johanna Meier for
the sheer power of her interpretation
.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
See also review of the previous release on the TDK label by
Simon
Thompson
Masterwork Index:
Tristan
und Isolde
[84.32 + 148.28] 
