Tristan und Isolde - Welsh National Opera - Cardiff Millenium Centre, 19 May 2012
Ben Heppner’s heartening return to form was one of the best things about the revival of WNO’s 20 year old Tristan on Saturday night. His expressive way with the words was built on the sensitive control of every vocal colour in his palette. A minor crack in the second act and some tiring in the third were forgiveable blemishes. His ungainly appearance only underlined his anti-heroic, supremely human portrait.
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Tristan und Isolde - CBSO / Nelsons - Symphony Hall Birmingham, 3 March 2012
Forget staged, semi-staged or even notionally visual. The singers were lined up behind their music stands. The conductor was confined to a chair. This was a static Tristan und Isolde, even by concert version standards. But four enthralling hours proved that sometimes the music really is all that matters.
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Tristan und Isolde - Nationaltheater Munich, 27 July 2011
A superbly-executed Festspiele performance of one of Munich's great productions. Covent Garden's older Wagner efforts are so embarrassing they're practically unrevivable. But thanks to Peter Konwitschny, the Bavarian State Opera has several that can be reliably resuscitated year after year, each time gripping/fascinating/provoking a new audience.
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I won't bother with an full overview of the CBSO's 2011-12 season as the Birmingham Post has done an excellent job already. As always there's plenty there to justify a trip, and it's worth pointing out a few concerts are likely to sell out soon after booking opens on 6 June.
First up is a concert version of Tristan und Isolde on Saturday 3 March 2012 at 4.00pm. Andris Nelsons conducts, with Torsten Kerl as Tristan, Lioba Braun as Isolde, Christianne Stotijn as Brangäne, Brett Polegato as Kurwenal and Matthew Best as King Marke.
Lucky Birmingham also get a visit from Jonas Kaufmann. After last year's Bayreuth Lohengrin, he again teams up with Andris Nelsons on Wednesday 7 March 2012, this time to sing Strauss and Mahler.
On Wednesday 30 May 2012 there's a special concert in Coventry Cathedral which marks the 50th anniversary of Britten's War Requiem. Busy Andris Nelsons conducts Kristine Opolais, Mark Padmore and Thomas Quasthoff.
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Tristan und Isolde - Deutsche Oper Berlin, 13 March 2011 (production premiere)
Petra Maria Schnitzer made her role debut as Isolde tonight at the Deutsche Oper. Tristan was her husband, Peter Seiffert, making the pair one of the very few real-life couples to play Tristan and Isolde since Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld and his wife Malvina created the roles back whenever. Novelty value aside, they did well to create a credible and compelling onstage relationship in a Graham Vick's baffling new production.
******** now updated with more photos ********
Continue reading "Tristan und Isolde - Deutsche Oper Berlin do it Graham Vick style" »
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Tristan und Isolde: Philharmonia Orchestra - Royal Festival Hall, 26 September 2010
This semi-staged production arrived in London at the end of a mini-tour that took in the unholy trinity of Lucerne, Dortmund and Birmingham. No surprise after all that practice to hear unusually disciplined playing from the Philharmonia - barely a note out of place all night. The puffed-up programme note - irritatingly braggadocious as an X Factor contestant - claims it "has the greatest claim of any orchestra to be the UK's national orchestra". Well, on this showing they were certainly the best-rehearsed.
Continue reading "Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Festival Hall" »
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A few events that may have slipped beneath your radar:
If you missed out in the ticket scrum for Esa-Pekka Salonen's Philharmonia Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Festival Hall with Gary Lehman and Violeta Urmana, you might consider travelling to Birmingham Symphony Hall (where the sound is also immeasurably better) on 23 September 2010 for the UK premiere. Not many tickets left so don't hang around too long.
Birmingham is also the furthest south that Opera North will bring their new Das Rheingold (semi-staged) next summer. It's on 24 June 2011 and there are plenty of tickets left at the time of writing, though the best are going fast.
Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera House orchestra take a rare step outside Covent Garden on 27 February 2011 when they perform at Cadogan Hall. Thomas Hampson and ~Klaus Florian Vogt~ join them for the chamber version of Das Lied von der Erde, with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll also on the bill. Tickets went on sale yesterday.
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Shortly before completing his wonderful 1982 recording
But even the magic captured then can't match the febrile intensity of his 1974 live recording from Bayreuth
Recently-uncovered film footage from the Bayreuth pit may provide a clue. Though the picture is grained to a ghost and the sound quality appalling, you can see - and hear - the music utterly transforming and transporting the maestro.
There are six clips - the most revealing is the last (Liebestod).
Act.1 - Prelude:
Continue reading "rare Carlos Kleiber footage from Bayreuth" »
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The Philharmonia are opening their 2010/11 season with a bang - or rather, a semi-staged performance of Tristan und Isolde.
Gary Lehmann and Christine Brewer head a fabulous cast that also includes Anne Sofie von Otter and John Relyea. Bill Viola provides projections and Peter Sellars is named as "artistic collaborator", so I assume what we'll be getting is a show that has already been seen in the States under the banner of The Tristan Project - a widely praised film and music combination that may enrage a certain section of the audience with its on-screen striptease and gay Tristan. Seat prices go up to £75, but that compares well with New York's $500.
Tickets went on sale today to Southbank members (public booking opens on 22 February) and are going fast already.
The rest of the Philharmonia's season includes a Bartók series, and of course more bleeding Mahler, this time a full symphony cycle from Lorin Maazel. Come 2012, we'll all be able to whistle every tune he ever wrote.
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As predicted way back on opening night, Big Ben Heppner has pulled out of Covent Garden's Tristan und Isolde.
His place at tomorrow's performance will be taken by Lars Cleveman, who did a decent if rather low-volume job as Siegfried in the Halle Orchestra's recent Götterdämmerung.
It's not clear at this stage whether he'll also take over for the last show of the run on Sunday.
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A quick first glimpse of Christof Loy's new Tristan und Isolde for the Royal Opera House shows that anyone expecting billowing sails and crumbling towers is going to be disappointed.
His design inspiration like his leading lady Nina Stemme appears to hail from Sweden. The Baltic greys of the monochrome sets, the COSy costumes, the painted-on panelling suggest not just a man who can work to a budget but the cool nordic austerity of early Bergman.
And not a ship in sight.
********** many more photos over the page *********
Continue reading "pure theatrical IKEA - Christof Loy's flatpack Tristan in photos" »
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Summer is nearly over, and at last the concert calendar is filling up.
Proms and alternatives
The Proms seem to have gone on forever, but it'll all be over for another year on 12 September.
Remaining highlights include Mariss Jansons with the Concertgebouw, Riccardo Chailly with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta and Franz Welser-Möst (replacing the scheduled Harnoncourt).
On 4 September there's an unmissable double header - first Matthias Goerne and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in Mahler, Ligeti, Schoenberg and Strauss, then a late-night George Crumb special.
Incidentally, operatic highlights for the 2010 Proms - you heard it here first - are expected to include Die Meistersinger with Bryn Terfel, Glyndebourne's Don Giovanni, and a substantial chunk of Tristan und Isolde from the Orchestra of the 18th Century with Ben Heppner.
If you want to skip the ghastliness of the last night - something I cannot recommend too highly - alternatives include the Wigmore Hall season opener which is Die schöne Müllerin from Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis.
Or there's a FREE screening of the 1929 silent movie Piccadilly on an outside wall (don't blame me if it rains) of the Royal Festival Hall accompanied by a new score from composers Suki Mok and Ruth Chan. Following the screening, the score "will become the lynchpin of a cross-artform work incorporating dance, drama and video against a backdrop of the original silent movie".
Opera
The Royal Opera House season opens on 7 September with two concert performances of Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix conducted by Mark Elder and featuring Alessandro Corbelli alongside the hotly-tipped Eglise Gutiérrez and Stephen Costello.
Don Carlo has started rehearsals and promises to turn out even better than first time round. Semyon Bychkov conducts, Jonas Kaufmann is in the title role, and the rest of the cast is much the same as it was first time round, with Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside and Ferruccio Furlanetto reprising his definitive Philip.
Don't expect much on stage except the singers in born-again minimalist Christof Loy's new production of Tristan und Isolde. Tristan is Ben Heppner and Isolde Nina Stemme, with Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch completing the cast. Pappano conducts.
English National Opera's season opens with the much-travelled, highly-praised production of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre by La Fura dels Baus.
The Arcola Theatre's variable but occasionally brilliant (and cheap) Grimeborn opera festival continues until 5 September. Handel, Poulenc and Mozart are included amongst the mostly contemporary works.
There's an opportunity to hear Rossini's rarely-performed Il Signor Bruschino and La Scala di Seta as well as The Rake's Progress from British Youth Opera between 4 and 12 September.
And Valery Gergiev conducts the LSO in a concert performance of La Damnation de Faust on 22 September, with a cast including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Schade, Thomas Quasthoff and Florian Boesch.
Concerts
The LSO's season opener is on 20 September, with Gergiev conducting Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel.
At the Royal Festival Hall, Bernard Haitink conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 23 and 24 September. And on 25 and 26 September Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO tackle Mahler's 2nd Symphony. Anne Sofie von Otter visits on 30 September with songs from her Theresienstadt CD.
At Wigmore Hall, Matthias Goerne continues his Schubert marathon on 18 and 20 September (a different programme on each night).
And on 28 September it's Imogen Cooper's bus-pass birthday concert. She'll be joined by Wolfgang Holzmair, Mark Padmore, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Paul Lewis.
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Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.
The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.
The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.
The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.
This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.
Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.
October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.
Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.
John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.
Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.
Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.
Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.
A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.
Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido)
Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.
Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.
Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?
The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.
Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.
What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.
Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?
In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.
The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.
No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.
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*******UPDATE 22/4*******
The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.
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London Philharmonic Orchestra / Jurowski - Royal Festival Hall, 13 December 2008
As Glyndebourne's house band, the LPO have played a fair few Tristan und Isoldes, no doubt one factor tonight in their polished concert performance of the second act.
The other factor was Vladimir Jurowski, who buffs their sound to a sheen few others can achieve. Not just well-rehearsed, it was well-planned too. The offstage horns at the start were perfectly integrated, and Brangäne's distant warning to the secret lovers, delivered from the choir stalls, sounded truly faraway. But the flipside of forethought is caution. I could admire Jurowski's lucid phrasing and transparent textures. As in the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth which opened the evening, there were moments I heard things that had never struck me before.
But it was too delicately nuanced for any telling dramatic effect, not to mention curiously amorphous overall, the narrative arch sacrificed in favour of the pointed detail. Contrasts were underplayed, and, in the sterile acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall, much left me cold. As an exploration of erotic abandon, it had the nagging undercurrent of a gynecological exam. The foundations are there, but though I always will Jurowski to impress, it's not yet a great interpretation.
The most moving moments of the night came from Laszlo Polgar as King Marke. Despite (or perhaps because of) a bad cold that gave him a few cracking issues, his Tatest Du's wirklich? had real pathos, his bottomless bass hollow with the dignified resignation of a man already dead inside.
Sarah Connolly's Brangäne - her first Wagner role ever, I think - was a great success, too. Concern and worldly wisdom blended in her rich and surprisingly powerful voice. But the Ikea duvet cover dress was not a flattering choice. Stephen Gadd, doubling up as Melot and Kurwenal, also gave a strong if brief performance.
As for Tristan and Isolde themselves, there are probably no singers around today who can fill the roles entirely satisfactorily.
Robert Dean Smith has on his side a lyrical voice and buckets of stamina. He also knows the role backwards. He never strained or shouted. But there was minimal characterisation - he sang the part rather than playing it. I'd also prefer to hear a heftier voice in this role.
Anja Kampe has all the makings of a good Isolde. She tends to excessive vibrato, but her voice has strength and warmth and projects well. She also looks the part, and I know from previous exposure what a great actress she is. But at the moment she doesn't seem to know quite who Isolde is. Either that or she was too busy concentrating on getting the basics right (both she and Sarah Connolly used scores) to characterise her interpretation to her fullest ability. She tackles the role in full for the first time at Glyndebourne next summer, so there's plenty of time to work it out.
The Royal Festival Hall certainly knows how to fill a Saturday night; after the concert it was downstairs for more music, this time the London Sinfonietta's 40th birthday celebrations (recorded live for Radio 3 and available for the next few days here). It's a tiring life.
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Proms 64 and 65: Berliner Philharmoniker / Simon Rattle - Royal Albert Hall, 2 and 3 September 2008
Wagner Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod, Messiaen Turangalîla Symphony
Brahms Symphony No.3, Shostakovich Symphony No.10
If you've ever seen photos of Simon Rattle in action, you might assume he just stands there with his gob gated open all night, like an angler fish on the ocean bed. In reality, he talks non-stop, or at least mouths. I wish I could lip read. I'm pretty sure I caught a couple of "help me"s but the rest is a mystery.
I was able to study the Rattle platform manner at close hand on Tuesday night from my surprisingly pricy (£23) seat in the choir stalls, tucked behind the Berlin Philharmonic's gleaming tubular bells and pleasingly close to the Berlin motor itself, the tigerish growl of the basses.
Of course a lot of water can be lost through an open mouth. That's why marathon runners keep theirs shut, and overheated doggies don't.
No wonder Sir Simon needed a mini-break halfway through the hour-plus Turangalîla Symphony to chug back some water behind the piano, coaxing the obliging violas into a bit of quite unnecessary 'retuning' to cover.
It was a wonderfully lucid account of this lengthy and problematical, inherently episodic work. If talent borrows and genius steals, then Messiaen could be a musical Einstein. Rattle drew out the direct quotations from Wagner's Tristan more clearly than I've ever heard before - and of course it did no harm to hear the wellspring itself, exquisitely presented, at the start of the evening.
Messiaen's anointed, Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the piano and Tristan Murail at the ondes Martenot, brought a special authority. Where the work could have tipped over into Gershwin-pastiche vulgarity, Rattle wisely settled on festive exuberance.
There was a more honed predictability about the second concert. Despite the near-perfection of the orchestra's playing - or perhaps because of it - Rattle seemed content to lay back and bathe in the immaculately polished sound. While there's nothing wrong with loveliness for its own sake, I find this orchestra at their best when they're nearer the edges of their comfort zone, as they were with the previous night's Messiaen.
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Tristan und Isolde - Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 28 December 2007
The first night of Tristan und Isolde at La Scala was recorded for broadcast, so I was able to check out some quality clips on YouTube (here) before my own visit. This turned out to be quite useful, as my second-row box seat, though hugely €€€, didn't have the greatest of views:
Though with the whole run sold out weeks in advance, I was lucky to get anything at all by booking a mere few days ahead. I just grabbed the only return available.
The square outside the theatre was lit up for the holidays, with falling snowflakes and multi-lingual messages of festive cheer projected on to the buildings' facades :
La Scala really went to town on the programme, a 400 page brick of a hardback book (left) complete with full libretto, 100 pp. of watch ads, cast lists for every La Scala Tristan production evah, etc, etc. Irresistible - so I dropped the required €20.
Before curtain up, an announcement that Ian Storey (Tristan) was indisposto generated an audible collective sharp intake of breath - hope perhaps that he might be replaced by someone the audience had actually heard of? - followed by a collective sigh as the announcer went on to say he was going to soldier on bravely. Bah.
Vocally, though he was rather uneven, the crux of his ailment seemed to be amnesia - he was loudly prompted through a chunk of the last act.
From the expression on his face at the end, you'd think he was being handed a twenty year sentence without parole rather than the warm applause he actually received. I don't think he's anyone's ideal Tristan, but given the world heldentenor shortage and the barrel-scraping other houses have been forced into, he's really not that bad. And it's hard to fault him as an actor - he hardly twinkles with star quality, but he's a solid and credible performer.
Waltraud Meier made a rather more reliable Isolde, only the very highest notes eluding her. Her steely presence was arresting, though it lacked the vulnerable edge that would have made it touching. Perhaps the curiously well-rested appearance of her forehead (as first spotted by the eagle-eyed OperaChic) creates difficulties in projecting the necessary emotion, hmmm.
A surprise weakness in the cast was the normally reliable Matti Salminen, whose König Marke was more like a befuddled grandad woken inopportunely from a nap than the wronged husband and betrayed friend.
Patrice Chéreau's ohso predictable production caused no offence, but other than camouflaging a few corpulent Wagnerian frames in flattering overcoating, did no real favours either.
The only really interesting touch was in the detail of the set. Chéreau's usual grim indeterminate wharfside environment was tweaked into a fittingly North Italian ambience with ruddy clay Roman walls and pointy cypress trees. It reminded me of those Italian Renaissance paintings where everything from the birth of Jesus to St Jerome in the wilderness seems to be taking place on a small hillside outside Florence.
If only we could have had some Piero pastels for the costumes instead of, once again, the drab Echo & the Bunnymen rags. Once, this style must have looked new and exciting, but now when every other Wagner production borrows it, isn't it time to try something different?
At least Barenboim was there to save the day (sort of). His long acquaintance with the score paid off in a monumentally structured orchestral performance of immaculate Wiener-like finesse. If at times Barenboim's tempo seemed languorous, it was justified later in framing the contrasting sections, forever inching inexorably to the finishing line.
It was sometimes hard to believe this was 'just' an opera house orchestra, with their lush string sound, polished brass and exquisite balance. The three Vorspiele were an opportunity to just sit back and luxuriate in the sound of the orchestra without the distraction (and that's what it often was) of singers and movement. These were for me the only truly engaging episodes in the whole evening. The orchestra joined Barenboim on stage to take a bow at the end, something they deserved rather more than certain of the singers.
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Covent Garden Odeon was a surprisingly pleasant venue for screening the new film of Glyndebourne's Nikolaus Lehnhoff Tristan und Isolde -- clean, comfortable seats, bags of legroom, functional aircon -- none of which you could claim for any opera house here. And it even started on time.
There are no concessions to the seventh art in this film. They've simply pointed a camera at the stage and let it roll, alternating close-ups with longer shots. The cast even sport their heavy checkit-from-row-Z make up, but thanks to harsh stage lighting, it highlights every wrinkle and blemish. And because these singers have been picked for their musical abilities rather than their closeup potential, it's rather cruel. Perhaps it'll be less obvious on DVD.
The single set, a sort of tiered glossy whorl that's probably supposed to be the spiral of existence or whatevs actually reminded me of the opening James Bond credits instead.
With minimal camerawork and minimal cast movement, this could make for an immensely dull screen experience. A pared-down production that seems to capture a meditative essence in live performance can translate into torpor when you stick a camera in front of it.
However the facially expressive cast are compensation, as are the exquisite and highly detailed costumes, wimpletastic medieval styles updated in matte sequins and shorn bunnyfur.
Vocally and dramatically there are no weak links in this cast, but only René Pape (Marke) was truly exceptional, bringing a dignity and humanity to his role. Nina Stemme (Isolde) was always fascinating to watch, but it's not the most beautiful of voices. Robert Gambill (Tristan) came into his own with a gripping mad scene in Act 3, all the more haunting for its restraint, but lacked credibility earlier in a silly evening gown and Tommy Cooper wig.
Jiří Bělohlávek's deliberate pacing was I thought overdone in Act I, but there was a grace and gravity to the later parts. His dynamics seemed rather unshaded, but then the sound was surprisingly poor in the auditorium, given that it has the latest audio system. The more densely-orchestrated sections simply sounded like a radio turned up too loud. I couldn't be certain whether this was the cinema's fault, or the way the production had been recorded. At any rate, I think on this listening, and on purely musical criteria, there are several CD recordings I'd prefer to this one.
But great music doesn't necessarily make a great DVD, and neither necessarily does a great production. Not everything translates as you might hope. The landmark Tristan film for me remains the 1983 Barenboim/Ponelle version, and this one doesn't better it. But as there are surprisingly few even halfway decent DVD versions around, this becomes a sure runner up. Always assuming it makes it to DVD that is....
....if not, there are still a number of screenings at various Odeons on 25 October, details here -- the Covent Garden one is sold out though.
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