Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan – Stephen Gould
Isolde – Evelyn Herlitzius
Brangäne – Christa Mayer
Kurwenal – Iain Paterson
King Marke – Georg Zeppenfeld
Melot – Raimund Nolte
Shepherd/Young Sailor – Tansel Akzeybek
Steersman – Kay Stiefermann
Chor und Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele/Christian Thielemann
Katharina Wagner (Stage Director)
Recorded live at the 2015 Bayreuth Festival
Picture Format 1080i High Definition 16:9; PCM Stereo & DTS-HD MA 5.0; All regions
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON Blu-ray 0735254 [249 mins (opera) + 16 min (extras)]
This summer (2016), after ten years of applying, I got a ticket
to the Bayreuth Festival. It’s an experience to say more about another
time: suffice it to say that everything you have heard about the place is
true: the town is appealing, the festival orchestra and chorus are superb,
the theatre’s acoustics are extraordinary, and it is hot-as-hell during
the performances. Seeing as how you never know whether you’ll get another
chance, I splashed out and went to the first night of everything: Parsifal
(superb), the Ring (which looked awful) and Holländer
(odd but satisfying).
I also got to see the first revival of Tristan und Isolde, the big
new production of 2015. It was important for two main reasons: firstly, it
was the first production that Christian Thielemann conducted since being (controversially)
made the festival’s music director; and secondly, it was Katharina Wagner’s
first production since taking over sole directorship of the festival. Hence,
a lot was riding on it. Jim Pritchard has reviewed for Seen and Heard
both the original
production and its
2016 revival.
The revival I saw had an all but identical cast (only the Isolde was different),
so reviewing this DG film makes for very interesting comparisons between stage
and screen. It’s a dark, gloomy staging, deeply interventionist, with
not a hint of the natural world, and nary a suggestion of ship, garden or
castle, but for me it rather worked. Act I takes place in a set of corridors,
landings and staircases that go nowhere, reminiscent of the world of M. C.
Escher. It’s a maze that the four characters inhabit. However, in this
staging Tristan and Isolde are already in love: it’s circumstances
that are maddeningly keeping them apart. Sometimes these circumstances are
Brangäne and Kurwenal, who strive to keep master and mistress away from one
another, and sometimes it’s the set itself, with corridors that fly
up and down, and staircases that detach themselves to prevent ascent. As they
are already in love, there is no need for the magic potion, and they ritualistically
pour it out onto their hands at the climax of Act I (the photo on the BD cover).
In Katharina Wagner’s vision, however, King Marke knows of their treachery
and punishes them for it brutally. Act II takes place in a prison. At floor
level are Tristan, Isolde, Brangäne and Kurwenal, while from the balcony above
Marke watches with his men, the light of their searchlights being the light
that deters the lovers from their yearning. Tristan is killed at the end of
Act II. Act III consists of a vigil around his body, and it is here that the
staging’s finest moments come. Tristan’s ghost (I assume) is tormented
by various apparitions of Isolde which appear mysteriously in different corners
of the stage. Some are real, some are mannequins, but all disintegrate when
he tries to reach for them. It’s a beautiful realisation of the unattainability
of their love, startling in the theatre and very successful on screen too.
Isolde delivers her Liebestod over Tristan’s body and, when
she has done so, is gruffly led away by Marke, perhaps to the conjugal duties
of an unhappy marriage, or perhaps to something even worse.
Like I said, it’s interventionist; but there’s a long history
of that at Bayreuth, not least those Tristans from Ponnelle and Müller
(both conducted by Daniel Barenboim), as well as the
most recent production from Christoph Marthaler, and if you’re open-minded
to the concept then it can be very rewarding. Some things don’t work,
most especially the battle and the deaths at the end of Act III, which look
silly and laboured, and the Liebestod is inevitably bathetic. Most
damagingly, the production makes Marke out to be a cruel, hard-edged despot,
which the music tells us that he most definitely is not. It’s hard for
me to figure out whether I was sympathetic to it particularly because of my
Bayreuth experience, but on screen I think it works very well, particularly
the first act, whose bizarrely constructed set is illuminated by some superb
camera work from what feels like dozens of angles. The video director generally
puts your eye where your ear tells you it should be, and he mostly knows when
to move and when to stay still. The opening of the Liebesnacht is
very well filmed, for example, with a wide angle of the whole stage capturing
some hypnotic projections while the lovers stand totally still. Only at the
ecstatic start of the duet did it get in the way, as the camera repeatedly
switches away from the lovers and onto some rather extraneous nonsense from
Kurwenal and Brangäne, something you can ignore in the theatre but not on
the screen.
The only casting difference between this film and the production I saw is
in Isolde. I saw Petra Lang, but here we have Evelyn Herlitzius, who was herself
a late stand-in for Anja Kampe (who, rumour has it, withdrew from the production
due to a Ring-based spat between conductor Christian Thielemann and
her partner Kirill Petrenko). Herlitzius’ can be a difficult voice to
love. On the one hand she has impressive technique and is undeniably on top
of the tessitura, not putting a foot wrong until, damagingly, the climax of
the Liebestod where she pushes ahead of Thielemann’s beat,
presumably because her stamina was finding his broad speed challenging. On
the other, she has a definite shrieky edge, with shrillness that can be quite
cutting. However, as your ear tunes into her voice you stop noticing it. She
can’t come near Waltraud Meier, the finest Bayreuth Isolde of recent
times; but, then, who can?
For me, the greatest thing about this production was Stephen Gould’s
Tristan, which is far and away the best I’ve heard in the theatre. Hearing
the confidence with which he tackles the mountain range of the third act left
me open-mouthed in amazement at times. The voice has strength, power and tremendous
heft, fearlessly conquering the tessitura. Knowing that, however, the thing
that most struck me on the BD was the lyricism and warmth of his voice, particularly
in the first act. He sings the first two acts like the most gorgeous form
of bel canto, and to then go from that to the poleaxing final act
is an achievement that is just astonishing. For him alone, this BD would be
worth picking up. He is undoubtedly the finest exponent of the role today,
and I count it a privilege to have heard him sing it.
The other real standout is Georg Zeppenfeld. For me, he was the star of the
festival as a whole, singing Marke, Gurnemanz and Hunding through the summer,
and singing each of them magnificently. He sings the old King with profound
lyricism, great depth of feeling and unflinching musicality, one of the finest
I’ve heard on disc recently (though not even he can prevent the king’s
second act monologue from becoming a crushing bore).
British bass Iain Paterson sounds great as Kurwenal, bluff warm and humane
throughout. Christa Mayer, on the other hand, who was utterly commanding in
the theatre, sounds a bit shrill and histrionic as Brangäne, and is a bit
disappointing. The other minor roles are all done very well, particularly
Tansel Akzeybek’s Shepherd and Sailor.
The other great star, however, is Christian Thielemann, who must have known
that a lot was riding on his first production as music director. There is
an uncommonly informative interview with him included as a brief extra film,
and in it he talks fascinatingly about his approach. He mentions that his
reading is very different to his
earlier Vienna recording because he altered it to chime with the staging,
and he says that he conducted so as consciously to avoid the rapture, seeing
Tristan as a parable for the dangers of too much ecstasy, bringing
out the misery in the story. Be that as it may, his ear for the long line
is pretty breathtaking. His account of the Prelude is volcanic, with surges
of energy that threaten to overwhelm towards the end, punctuated by what sound
like genuine stabs of pain. He controls the unfolding tension with absolute
mastery – only the climax of the Liebesnacht sounds a little
rushed – and he generates both excitement and agony in vast quantities.
He’s a controversial figure for both musical and personal/political
reasons, but this Tristan interpretation silenced even most of his
critics.
Thielemann get the biggest roar from the crowd at the end, which brings me
to the fact that, unlike many filmed productions from Bayreuth, this one was
done totally live in front of an audience, and you get the applause and curtain-calls
at the end of each act. However, the audience is mostly well behaved: it just
takes them a few seconds to settle down at the start of each act, which isn’t
surprising when you can’t see that the conductor is ready to begin.
As I mentioned above, I guess I hold this film in special affection because
it reminds me of my year at the Festival, and I haven’t made it a Recording
of the Month because I understand how it might polarise viewers. I can definitely
see the appeal for a wider audience, however. It will infuriate traditionalists,
and will confirm the prejudices of anyone who thinks that the Bayreuth Festival
is going to hell-in-a-handcart, but there are riches there if you’re
willing to look for them, and I’ll go back to this again and again.
As an aside, this also marks the beginning of a partnership between the Bayreuth
Festival and Deutsche Grammophon. Apparently DG are planning on releasing
several Bayreuth productions over the next few years, so watch this space
for more: with a bit of luck they might release 2016’s Parsifal.
Incidentally, the identical cast (with Petra Lang as Isolde) is due to sing
the opera at Bayreuth in 2017, and you shouldn’t think that you have
absolutely no chance of seeing it if you haven’t spent years on the
festival’s waiting list. The lady I sat next to in the auditorium told
me that, while she had been on the list for ten years, her husband had turned
up on the day and had had no difficulty in picking up a ticket at the box
office, so don’t ever despair of getting one. Even the impregnable fortress
of the Bayreuth Festival has ways in.
Simon Thompson
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