Nationaltheater
Tristan – Robert Dean Smith
King Marke – René PapeIsolde – Waltraud Meier
Kurwenal – Alan Held
Melot – Francesco Petrozzi
Brangäne – Michelle Breedt
Shepherd – Kevin Conners
Steersman – Christian Rieger
Young Sailor – Dean Power
Peter Konwitschny (director)
Johannes Leiacker (designs)Michael Bauer (lighting)
Werner Hintze (dramaturgy)
Bavarian State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Sören Eckhoff)
Bavarian State Orchestra
Philippe Jordan (conductor)
What do we call Tristan und Isolde? That may seem a
silly question. Tristan und Isolde,
surely, and Tristan for short,
although already we come to the exquisite difficulty, as Tristan and Isolde
themselves partly seem – though do they only seem? – to recognise, of that
celebrated ‘und’. Yes, Tristan is
just a shortened title, so we should not necessarily read anything into the
disappearance of Isolde, but, whilst we clearly value both lovers and both
singers portraying those lovers more or less equally – great Tristans perhaps
more so, given their ridiculous rarity – it struck me as perhaps particularly
perverse to have been referring to my seeing Tristan at the Munich Opera Festival, when, like so many in the
theatre, I had been going especially to hear and, yes, to see Waltraud Meier.
For these two performances in Munich, of which the one I heard was the first,
have been announced as her farewell to the role. ‘Waltrauds Abschied’, then, I
sentimentally called my visit, in dubious Mahlerian homage to a last
performance that was actually to be a penultimate performance. I could, after
all, hardly say I was off to hear Isolde
– or maybe I could, even should, have done.
Of course, when I asked, ‘what
do we call Tristan und Isolde’, I was
not necessarily just referring to the title. There is no need to frown upon
those calling it an opera; I am sure we have all done so at some point, or ought
to have done so. But, as with all of Wagner’s dramas, it distances itself from
the norms of opera and, perhaps still more so, the opera house. I am perhaps
over fond of deploying this quotation from Boulez, but it so often seems to hit
the nail upon the head. Whilst at work on the Ring at Bayreuth, Wagner’s great
conductor-composer successor observed: ‘Opera houses are often rather like
cafés where, if you sit near enough to the counter, you can hear waiters
calling out their orders: “One Carmen!
And one Walküre! And one Rigoletto!’ What was needed, Boulez
noted approvingly, ‘was an entirely new musical and theatrical structure, and
it was this that he [Wagner] gradually created’. It might then, not be entirely
wrong to suggest that Wagner’s works deserve shielding form the opera house, at
least as it currently exists. (Let us leave Bayreuth and its never-ending
travails to one side for the moment.) However, by the same token, Wagner’s Handlung –his own term, ‘action’, a Teuton’s
rendering of ‘drama’, admirably supersedes debates concerning nomenclature – is
surely at home in Munich, if anywhere at all. For ‘Waltrauds Abschied’, then,
and what I calculated must be at least my twentieth ‘live’ Tristan – sorry, I cannot yet bring myself to call it Isolde – there was something fitting to
experiencing it for the first time in the house in which it had received its
premiere, 150 years previously (10 June 1865).
Moving on a little from what
we call Tristan und Isolde, what do
we think it is ‘about’? Wagner was pretty clear, and I have tended to take him
at his word, or at least some of his words. In 1859,
summarising the work’s concerns for Mathilde Wesendonck, he omitted not only
King Marke’s forgiveness, but also Tristan’s agonies at Kareol. True action, Handlung, had been irreversibly transferred to the noumenal world:
‘redemption: death, dying, destruction, never more to waken!’ But as Peter Konwitschny, in a brilliant
programme note, argues, quoting Heiner Müller, himself director of a renowned Tristan, ‘Ein Werk ist immer klüger als
sein Autor.’ (‘A work is always cleverer than its author.’) Such, one might
have thought, was a truism, and for many of us it is, although not for those
strange people who seem to think it not only no cleverer but actually more
limited, referring to the tedious mantra of a ‘composer’s intentions’ , whilst actually
having no more interest in them than their most wild-eyed caricature of
so-called Regietheater would. For
them, the questionable taste of a questionable memory of their first exposure
to a work seems to suffice. Handlung?
Madame Tussauds, more like. (‘Museum’ would be too generous, given its
connotations of learning, culture, and stewardship.)
Back, however, to
Konwitschny. He makes the somewhat startling claim – at least to me – that Tristan is ‘ein sehr hoffnungsvolles
Stück’ (‘a very hopeful piece’). As ever, it depends what one means – and it
depends what one means by love, death, and so many other things. But
Konwitschny, arguably taking his cue from the score, from Isoldes Verklärung, declines to see desolation, although, certainly
not taking his cue from Wagner, he seems to tend more to Liszt’s conception of
a Liebestod. And so, following our
heroic couple’s shuffling off their mortal coils, sombrely dressed in black at
the foot of the stage, below the other Handlung
– if indeed that qualifies as such – we return to the raised level of that
other Handlung, and see Marke and
Brangäne visiting their graves. Love, ‘whatever that means’ – and we may
understand that as part of Wagner’s ongoing internal battle between Feuerbach
and Schopenhauer – may partly have won out, which sounds pat, but does not feel
so. Perhaps we have experienced Wagner’s Gefühlswerdung
des Verstandes (‘emotionalisation of the intellect’). More optimistically
still – and it is surely a useful corrective at least to consider the
non-pessimistic aspects or possibilities of the work – we might consider the
words of Wagner’s fellow radical 48er, Arnold Ruge, writing of an envisaged religion
of freedom, ‘the entire world of humanistic ideals, the entire Spirit of our
times, must enter the crucible of feeling, out of which it must again come
forth as a glowing stream and build a new world.’
Perhaps the most striking
thing about Konwitschny’s production, first seen in 1998, is how it creeps up
upon one; indeed, how its owl of Minerva truly only seems to take flight at
dusk. The first act takes place, relatively conventionally, on a ship, doing
pretty much what Wagner asks, and doing it rather well, although the colourful
curtain, presaging aspects of the second act, has perhaps called into question
our preconceptions before we are aware of their status as preconceptions . The
realms of light and day, phenomenon and noumenon, make their presence felt
after the taking of the potion through Michael Bauer’s excellent lighting: a
distinction that continues, greatly to the enhancement of the drama. One
certainly feels the tragedy in Tristan’s death upon Melot’s sword, but equally,
one feels, knows that that is not the only story. The world of Tristan’s past, played
to him on old video reels, complements what he tells us, without – this is
crucial – overpowering it, as too many overtly psychological, even
psychoanalytical readings do. Tristan
is not ultimately about the hero’s childhood; it remains concerned with
metaphysics, in one way or another. And the release provided by Isolde’s last
song is married, not in an easy way but certainly in a fruitful way,
to those final scenic aspects mentioned.
We came, of course, at least most
of us did, above all for Meier. It is a tribute to the performance and
production alike that she did not overshadow but indeed flourished. It would be
unduly perverse, though, to overlook her contribution. Over the years in which she
has sung Isolde, she has offered many, developing virtues, whether related to
production, musical performance, or even the stage of her career. Here,
everything seemed in more or less perfect balance – or, better, fruitful
dialectic. Attention to words was second to none, likewise stage presence.
Sustaining of a vocal line, however, was equally impressive. Suffice it to say,
she did not play Isolde; she was Isolde.
Robert Dean Smith also gave
the finest performance I can recall from him, and not just as Tristan. It was
as tireless a performance as I can recall from anyone, without the
disadvantages that often entails of sheer persistence trumping vocalism. The
sheer refulgence of René Pape’s King Marke had to be heard to be believed;
Markes rarely disappoint, but Pape achieved far more than not disappointing.
Alan Held was a thoughtful, dramatic, even at times impetuous Kurwenal: all in
character, impressive indeed. Michelle Breedt’s Brangäne was just the right
foil for Meier’s Isolde; this was a confidant, beautifully sung, in whom one
could – confide. Dean Power’s Young Seaman at the start was as sensitively sung
as any I can recall. Kevin Conners offered a powerful embodiment of the
Shepherd – Konwitschny’s two English horn players on stage an unforgettable
image – and even the Steersman, Christian Rieger, made a fine impression with
his all-too-brief line. Francesco Petrozzi presented ultimately inconsequential malevolence, as he should, in the role of Melot.
As Wagner wrote to Eduard
Devrient of his ‘most musical score,’ Tristan
has, and in performance should have, ‘the most vivid dramatic allusions totally
at one with the dynamic of its musical texture’. That is asking a great deal of
any conductor, orchestra, and cast. (And that is before we even consider that
this is emphatically not a concert work, whatever dark hopes we might entertain
upon seeing an unsatisfactory staging.) Philippe Jordan presented Wagner far
more impressively than I have heard from him before, whether in Bayreuth or in
Paris. The Handlung was as much in
the orchestra as on stage, arguably more so, which is just as it should be.
Pacing rarely, if ever, faltered, and details were presented without
overwhelming (crucial woodwind lines in particular). The splendid Bavarian
State Orchestra, whose praises I have been singing all week, excelled itself
here. Dark of tone, yet clear and transparent where necessary, it was, in the
pit that so much of Tristan und Isolde
was truly brought to that life which its director argued so forcefully was of
its essence.
