# Wagnerians How would you stage Tristan?



## txtrnl341 (Jan 21, 2020)

I've been doing some oil sketches of my own trying to come up with something lovely yet not distracting.
In an opera that consists of little action but wanting opera goers to be visually pleased is not easy task.
Have you seen one done to your satisfaction? Do you think it's even possible to connect a visual translation to the libretto? So far I have not pleased myself with my own efforts.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

I confess I love Heiner Müller production at Bayreuth, available as 1995 performance on DVD with Meier/Jerusalem/Barenboim. Not particularly fond of the first two acts (strange setting with all these rows of breastplates in Act II for example) but Act III is so damn effective it's almost unbearable to watch. The room filled with all sorts of random construction debris as if the castle is about to fall apart as well as Tristan's life.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Let me dig out this ancient post of mine:



SiegendesLicht said:


> If I were a stage director and entrusted with staging this particular opera, I would make Kurwenal and Brangäne into gay characters who are in love with Tristan and Isolde respectively. That would make for three tragedies instead of one
> 
> And seriously, Kurwenal and Brangäne display such a deep, fierce devotion towards Tristan and Isolde that it would not be far-fetched to imagine each one of them being in love - and hopelessly watching the fateful potion take its effect on their beloved ones. Maybe that is why Brangäne mixed up a love potion instead of death potion in the first place. Maybe she even hoped Isolde's affection would be suddenly directed towards her. And most definitely the reason Kurwenal gave his life for his friend with the words
> 
> ...


Other than that, I would just stick to the original Wagner's stage remarks and let the ship be a ship, the castle be a castle etc.


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## MaxKellerman (Jun 4, 2017)

Most modern stagings I've seen have been really minimal and either cold and clinical or dark and dreary, which to my mind doesn't capture the atmosphere of the work or effectively reflect the words and drama.





































I would love to see something that captured the imagery and evoked the spirit of a medieval poem; something colorful, lusicious, full of warmth and romance.


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## Scott in PA (Aug 13, 2016)

The sea should be of prominent focus, especially in Act 3. A symbol of life and hope, but finally despair and oblivion.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Azol said:


> I confess I love Heiner Müller production at Bayreuth, available as 1995 performance on DVD with Meier/Jerusalem/Barenboim. Not particularly fond of the first two acts (strange setting with all these rows of breastplates in Act II for example) but Act III is so damn effective it's almost unbearable to watch. The room filled with all sorts of random construction debris as if the castle is about to fall apart as well as Tristan's life.


I like Act 2 as well. It reminds me of a graveyard foreshadowing the doom against which they attempt to carve out their love.

Meier hated it and the stage direction (known for her charisma, she was ordered by Muller to be very restrained, they barely touch during the love duet), and stopped performing at Bayreuth after. But aside from that unfortunate business, I really enjoy it.


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## Fredrikalansson (Jan 29, 2019)

I would set it during the Napoleonic wars. First of all, you get to use one of those early 19th century full-sailed men-of-war in Act I, which would be a nice change from the submarines, cargo ships and trawlers now in fashion. Secondly, by using costumes specific to a defined historical period, I think you could really highlight the intensity of the conflicting loyalties that is one of the main themes of the opera. In Act II the lovers could rendezvous at a gazebo on the edge of a cliff overlooking a turbulent night sea. Isolde could dash a lantern to the ground rather than a torch. Act III could take place in a conservatory or hot house where Kurwenal is trying to keep the dying Tristan warm. The set would visually represent the musical quotation from _Tristan_ that occurs in the _Wesendonck Lieder (Im Triebhaus)_. A back projection could show the calm empty sea, until the sun sets as Tristan dies, and then as Isolde sings the _Liebestod_, the night sky could fill up with stars.

Romantic, I know, but I think it would give the singers a chance to move, breath and interact in ways that current productions don't because the singers are boxed in by a director's "concept" that is external to what's actually going on in the opera.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Perhaps it would work nicely as a semi-staged concert version with minimal props. I saw Handel's Ariodante that way a couple years ago and it was quite good.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Let me dig out this ancient post of mine:
> 
> Other than that, I would just stick to the original Wagner's stage remarks and let the ship be a ship, the castle be a castle etc.


Nothing more to add.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MaxKellerman said:


> Most modern stagings I've seen have been really minimal and either cold and clinical or dark and dreary, which to my mind doesn't capture the atmosphere of the work or effectively reflect the words and drama.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hideous, every one of them. Cold, forbidding, and not the least bit Wagnerian. I'd put every other contemporary staging I've seen in the same category, including the Heiner Muller production, which is dismal, annoying, and in act 2 ridiculous. It's as if these directors designed their sets and plotted the action without ever listening to the music. If they have, they clearly don't like it.

_Tristan_ can be staged realistically or in a highly stylized way. As a stylized production I like the 1960s Wieland Wagner production at Bayreuth, with the ship in act 1, the castle tower in act 2, and the ruins in act 3 each suggested by a single, gigantic form dominating the stage and strongly suggesting a phallic symbol. The lighting works with the moods of the music, and the overall feeling is at once ancient and modern.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tri...UWFTQIHYu6DHkQ_AUoAnoECAwQBA&biw=1242&bih=597


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Why wouldn’t you stage it just like the composer and librettist directed? Same time, same setting. Yes, I know Wagner was his own librettist. That’s why it’s so darned long.... he needed an editor.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

that Glyndebourne production - not bad, was it?


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

MAS said:


> Why wouldn't you stage it just like the composer and librettist directed? Same time, same setting.


Good question. Just the fact that it needs to be asked, because no current production available on video even attempts to tell the story as conceived and dileneated by Wagner in a medieval and chivarlic setting is what is extraordinary.



> Yes, I know Wagner was his own librettist. That's why it's so darned long.... he needed an editor.


But I'm not sure how this follows. In fact this criticism rather misses the mark -- his librettos aren't abnormally long, afterall. There is not a lot, if any, superfluous action. No extended episodes featuring minor characters or peripheral storylines. Every element is carefully balanced and the plots have been boiled down to their core essence.

For example, if you read Wagner's primary source material for Tristan und Isolde, Gottfried von Strassburg's epic Tristan and Iseult, you see just how unfocused the original narrative is. In that version, Tristan and Iseult make a number of attempts at deceiving King Mark and averting his suspicions; Brangaene impersonates Iseult and loses her virginity to Mark; Iseult becomes jealous of Brangaene and plots her murder; there are actually two Iseults in the story, Iseult the fair and Iseult of the white hands; and so on and so forth.

Out of all these intertwining threads Wagner crafts his opera out of three primary events: 1)the drinking of the love potion 2)the discovery of the lovers by the hunting party 3)Tristan's death. Following Wagner's typical dramatic method, at the start of each act he drops us into the action at a point in time close to a major turning point in the plot, so instead of _demonstrating_ the story by having the characters act it out, the drama is largely recounted for the audience through backstory, piece by piece, and from the perspective of the characters.

The length of his operas comes from Wagner's unique musical development, where the resources of psychological exploration become the essence of the music drama, with a text and musical texture that move between the inner world of the characters and the outer world as portrayed on stage. Music and words express an accumulation of unconscious thoughts and emotions, all controlled by a steady theatrical pacing. "Editing" or "cutting" Wagner's operas in any substantial way would only disrupt their coherence and cohesion and reduce their powerful impact.


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

Zhdanov said:


> that Glyndebourne production - not bad, was it?


Perhaps nothing awful or distracting, but not exactly inspired or imaginative either. It seems to be in line with the current trend of most other stagings of the opera: an almost semi-staged production in a static and abstract setting, framed by a few distinct colors in each act.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I quite liked the Glyndebourne production. It looked elegant and I feel like Tristan doesn't need a cluttered stage. 

The Ponnelle one was gorgeous but the ending ruined it. It's kind of like Mass Effect 3 in that regard.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

OperaChic said:


> Perhaps nothing awful or distracting, but not exactly inspired or imaginative either.


that's because the singers don't inspire in there, otherwise this production would shine.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

What about Weiland Wagner?

























He used lighting rather than action to suggest the text. A pity the only record of his work on film is in black and white:


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

DavidA said:


> What about Weiland Wagner?
> 
> View attachment 129868
> 
> ...


I also love the images from his earlier production at Bayreuth. 
I'd never know how to put something on stage that matches the despair of the Act 3 prelude.


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

I don't think I'd be able to improve upon the Heiner Müller production. When Tristan and Isolde meet in act two, the unrestraint of the orchestra contrasting with the extreme restraint of the acting and stagecraft provides one of the most tensely emotional moments in all of theatre and music together that I can think of.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

composer jess said:


> I don't think I'd be able to improve upon the Heiner Müller production. When Tristan and Isolde meet in act two, the unrestraint of the orchestra contrasting with the extreme restraint of the acting and stagecraft provides one of the most tensely emotional moments in all of theatre and music together that I can think of.


Extreme restraint? Tensely emotional? Not exactly what I'd call it...






When I first saw this, I couldn't hear the music, as the question, "WTF?" was resounding too loudly in my brain. It looked like two emotionally frigid people meeting for a rehearsal of a lecture in a warehouse for medieval costumes. Upon reflection I could see that the idea is to show us that Tristan and Isolde are kept from expressing their feelings by a rigid, oppressive social milieu. Unfortunately, I didn't need to be told that, since Act One was devoted almost entirely to making the point clear, and the composer did it far more imaginatively and grippingly than Heiner-Mueller could ever dream of doing with thrift-shop sets and non-acting.

This is another one of those "concept" productions by someone intensely proud of having noticed some dramatic theme in an opera and as eager as a three-year-old to let us in on his discovery. It illustrates why I have no regrets about never having attended a Bayreuth festival. Richard and Wieland, be grateful you're dead.


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

I have never seen anyone speak so unfavourably of this particular production before, but I guess it's good that we all have differences of opinion.

Bayreuth always does interesting things, at least, interesting to me. Although I'm not always a fan of some of their productions it has shown to be a theatre that is continually evolving and exploring a range of interpretative stagings, stopping Wagner's works from ever feeling like they are of a bygone era. By virtue of fostering wide-ranging creativity, there will be a disproportinately large number of stagings which will be quite controversial, but a handful of these will certainly be remembered fondly in decades to come. 

I probably have about at least 60 years ahead of me still to live, so there's plenty of time to see what the future holds for Wagner at Bayreuth.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

composer jess said:


> I have never seen anyone speak so unfavourably of this particular production before, but I guess it's good that we all have differences of opinion....a theatre that is continually evolving and exploring a range of interpretative stagings, stopping Wagner's works from ever feeling like they are of a bygone era.


I gather that Waltraud Meier, the Isolde, wasn't too pleased with the scene either. An artist with her theatrical talent would certainly have preferred to do some real acting and to be free to convey a personality, as opposed to being forced to stand around like a virtual mannequin. Wagner's music for this incredible scene runs the gamut of romantic emotion. It's the lovers' only opportunity to forget the world, lose themselves in each other, and indulge in the sweet illusion that they can really be as one - "nicht mehr Tristan, nicht mehr Isolde." The text and music are clear about this. It's the heartbreaking heart of the opera. It defines the dimensions of the tragedy. It's what Isolde's "Liebestod" is a completion of.

It seems to me that there is little risk of Wagner's works feeling too much like things from a bygone era if they're performed with understanding and conviction. Of course they are in fact from a bygone era, and I see nothing wrong with being aware of that even as we feel they're still relevant to us.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Karajan's conception looks pretty good.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Karajan's conception looks pretty good.


Karajan was of course greatLy influenced by Wieland Wagner (as we're many others) even though he denied it! Where he did score was to have two good-looking people as the principles. In some productions you look wondering why Tristan fancies Isolde and not Brangaene.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Itullian said:


> Karajan's conception looks pretty good.


He truly was an aesthete. Really nice Das Rheingold staging too:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Woodduck is just wrong about the Muller. He's not happy unless there's phalluses everywhere.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> Woodduck is just wrong about the Muller. He's not happy unless there's phalluses everywhere.


In that frigid production there's no danger of one popping up anywhere.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

I liked the staged interpretation with video images by Bill Viola. It was some 15 years ago and Valery Gergiev conducted this in Rotterdam. It saves you from the disturbance of bad-acting Wagner singers.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> I liked the staged interpretation with video images by Bill Viola. It was some 15 years ago and Valery Gergiev conducted this in Rotterdam. It saves you from the disturbance of bad-acting Wagner singers.


Unfortunately it doesn't save us from pretentious directors with their abstruse concepts and mawkish imagery.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

In the Gwenyth Jones DVD they just turn out the lights for the Act 2 Duet and give the singers a spotlight as they stare out into the abyss and I think it's all you really need.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Byron said:


> Unfortunately it doesn't save us from pretentious directors with their abstruse concepts and mawkish imagery.


...or from cynical audiences who will never accomplish any artistic effort themselves, but are only capable of pissing at anything they see.

We might also skip staged opera all together, close all opera houses and only listen to the music in concert halls with eyes closed. So everybody can imagine his own ideal staging at the back of their own eyelids.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> ...or from cynical audiences who will never accomplish any artistic effort themselves, but are only capable of pissing at anything they see.
> 
> We might also skip staged opera all together, close all opera houses and only listen to the music in concert halls with eyes closed. So everybody can imagine his own ideal staging at the back of their own eyelids.


Tristan und Isolde may very well be perfect for home listening for that very reason -- anyone who has a reasonably vivid imagination can conjure up the appropriate scenes in their own mind. We are unlikely to see any approximation of images that relate to the story and music on stage these days. And listening at home with one's eyes closed would certainly be prefereble to looking at a bunch of irrelevant video images of people submerged in water or surrounded by fire because it reflects a director's "aesthetic expression" and an odd obsession with nauseating New Age symbolism while one is attempting to take in the music and drama. 

If we are to stage the opera, there's nothing wrong in expecting what we see to coherently reflect the music, text, and narrative of Wagner's opera. If anyone is cynical and pissing all over artistic creation perhaps it is the directors who imagine that they are needed to recreate, deconstruct, or engage in a kind of meta-commentary on the work in order make it worthwhile or relevant to audiences, rather than letting the opera speak for itself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I think Bill Viola's _Tristan_ project is interesting. It isn't a production of the opera, really, but seems to be more of a concert performance with an accompanying photographic interpretation. Pictures and other visual effects intended to complement musical works have their place - maybe the idea goes all the way back to Scriabin and his color organ - but I have to wonder about doing that with a four-hour opera. I fear that I might find the imagery a distraction from the music's emotional narrative, and the bits of the production I've seen on YouTube don't allay my fears. Someone should film the entire thing so we can all judge for ourselves.

_Tristan_ is far from the toughest Wagner opera to stage. There are really no special effects, and although the action is sparse for long stretches a good director and stage designer shouldn't find that too challenging. But I continue to feel that what Wagner really needs is first-class treatment on film, the only medium capable of doing justice to his imaginary worlds. Great films of the _Ring_ and _Parsifal _ are particularly needed, for obvious reasons, but a love story like _Tristan_ would certainly benefit from the intimacy of the camera. I think Wagner would emerge as the greatest film composer of all time (which film composers who steal from him already know), and he'd probably be awarded a posthumous Oscar.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I didn't care for that Viola production, saw it in Toronto. Distracts from the singers and if I want to stare at a screen I can go to the Met in HD at the cinema for much cheaper.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

A slightly controversial idea but when it comes to Wagner and his _Gesamtkunstwerk_, it could even be argued that the staging should convey the original meaning the composer intended as it's as important part of _Gesamtkunstwerk_ as is the music (this is a mere theory, so correct me if I'm wrong!). Therefore, as long as anyone isn't going to change the score of Wagner's operas, the staging shouldn't be drastically altered (he gave absurdly detailed staging directions as far as I know). I actually really appreciate and value great staging, even if it's non-traditional, but sometimes I feel it would be nice to have more traditional ones. Surely they might be more difficult to make, but I think the struggle is worth it  .


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> I didn't care for that Viola production, saw it in Toronto. Distracts from the singers and if I want to stare at a screen I can go to the Met in HD at the cinema for much cheaper.


That would be my fear. In Wagner the ideal is a feeling of unity, with everything contributing to the illusion. The modern aesthetic of making the stagecraft visible is alien to Wagner's work and prevents the total involvement he was after, and having to divide and shift our attention between the singers and a screen would only make it harder. If I wanted to see a video interpretation like Viola's, I'd prefer not to see the orchestra and singers at all so that I could simply lose myself in sounds and pictures.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

annaw said:


> A slightly controversial idea but when it comes to Wagner and his _Gesamtkunstwerk_, it could even be argued that the staging should convey the original meaning the composer intended as it's as important part of _Gesamtkunstwerk_ as is the music (this is a mere theory, so correct me if I'm wrong!). Therefore, as long as anyone isn't going to change the score of Wagner's operas, the staging shouldn't be drastically altered (he gave absurdly detailed staging directions as far as I know). I actually really appreciate and value great staging, even if it's non-traditional, but sometimes I feel it would be nice to have more traditional ones. Surely they might be more difficult to make, but I think the struggle is worth it  .


Wagner's stage directions are specific and important mainly in relation to the behavior of the characters. I think that he knew his characters and that we should pay attention to what his directions tell us, even if we depart from certain details. I doubt that he'd have been as particular about the aesthetics of the stage sets, which he surely expected to differ in different productions. The possibilities are enormous for directors to be creative without resorting to absurd violations of the operas. Having Tristan and Isolde meet in the boiler room of a battleship may not alter the plot substantially, but it makes nonsense out of the nocturnal poetry of the music. Portraying the Rhinemaidens as prositutes hanging out atop a hydroelectric dam has nothing whatsoever to do with the _Ring;_ I suspect that Chereau just didn't know what to do with the girls once he'd decided to make the work into an anti-capitalist manifesto.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's stage directions are specific and important mainly in relation to the behavior of the characters.


Thanks - this is exactly the sort of correction that was needed to my previous post! I'm actually not sure why Wagner's operas are (more?) frequently staged in a modernist style compared to, let's say, Italian operas. Maybe it's just the fact that when Bayreuth started with the innovations during the WW2, it became more popular or finally "allowed"... but I think it's an interesting phenomena.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

NLAdriaan said:


> ...or from cynical audiences who will never accomplish any artistic effort themselves, but are only capable of pissing at anything they see.
> 
> We might also skip staged opera all together, close all opera houses and only listen to the music in concert halls with eyes closed. So everybody can imagine his own ideal staging at the back of their own eyelids.


One of the problems we have is that operas have been done so many times that directors appear to think they must reimagine them. There was a particularly excruciating Tristan from the Met recently where What was happening on the stage appeared to be totally at odds with the music.Tristan is a very simple opera to stage. The whole thing is about suggestion, most of which comes from the music, and doesn't need some cackhanded producer


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

annaw said:


> I'm actually not sure why Wagner's operas are (more?) frequently staged in a modernist style compared to, let's say, Italian operas. Maybe it's just the fact that when Bayreuth started with the innovations during the WW2, it became more popular or finally "allowed"... but I think it's an interesting phenomena.


I'm not sure whether that's true - it seems that almost every opera now gets modernized or "rethought" - but since Wagner's are based on myths and legends and tend to be nonspecific as to time and place, and since they have an unusually strong philosophical component, directors can't resist "interpreting" them for all us dopes who may be wondering what they're about. Personally, I'm delighted to know that _Lohengrin_ is about a handsome young fellow who rides his swan into the Kingdom of Cheese to save a damsel from pink and yellow mice.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I think Bill Viola's _Tristan_ project is interesting. It isn't a production of the opera, really, but seems to be more of a concert performance with an accompanying photographic interpretation. Pictures and other visual effects intended to complement musical works have their place - maybe the idea goes all the way back to Scriabin and his color organ - but I have to wonder about doing that with a four-hour opera. I fear that I might find the imagery a distraction from the music's emotional narrative, and the bits of the production I've seen on YouTube don't allay my fears. Someone should film the entire thing so we can all judge for ourselves.


I saw it in Los Angeles some years ago, and you're right that it isn't exactly a production of the opera. Yet I must say the act of creating images around extraneous concepts and pseudo-intellectual tropes with only the vaguest relation the substance of the opera and then having those images exist on a kind of parallel plane to the music and drama could pretty much describe most regietheater productions -- this one just happens to have the images being projected by video rather than the action taking place directly on stage and being acted out by the singers.

I think the basic idea might even be appealing on a more limited scale, if some images were put together to accompany some short orchestral excerpts from the opera for example. But when you're listening to the entire score its only natural that you begin to follow the narrative context and immerse yourself in the music and sung words. At that point watching a couple of male and female figures getting undressed and jumping into a pool is nothing but disorienting and frankly almost laughable.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

MAS said:


> Why wouldn't you stage it just like the composer and librettist directed? Same time, same setting. Yes, I know Wagner was his own librettist. That's why it's so darned long.... he needed an editor.





OperaChic said:


> Good question. Just the fact that it needs to be asked, because no current production available on video even attempts to tell the story as conceived and dileneated by Wagner in a medieval and chivarlic setting is what is extraordinary.


Yes, an interesting question. My guess would be, the reason has little to do with Wagner. Rather, the idea is that in 18th- and 19th-century opera generally, while the musical elements can be preserved in their original form or very close to it, at least some of the theatrical elements are obsolete and need to be modified or replaced. I do think that theater is an art that doesn't translate as easily to other times and cultures as can music. Of course, that doesn't explain why original sets, costumes, staging and lighting can be completely abandoned while the libretto is sacrosanct, save for translation to a language familiar to a particular intended audience.


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