# Tristan, Isolde, and You



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Check off whichever Tristan video recordings you have watched a substantial (> 2 hours) of!
Also, I didn't put an "other category", but if you have seen any not listed above, put in comments!


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

@amfortas: Which Barenboim do you like the best?


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Here's my choice, along with what I wrote about it on another thread:










Heiner Muller's Bayreuth staging is sparse and abstracted, based on luminous cubes like a series of Rothko paintings. There is a reserve and coolness to this production that is somehow in keeping with Wagner's philosophizing lovers. But providing the passionate, beating heart of it all is Waltraud Meier's fiery Isolde. Her liebestod is a transcendent moment, the final image sealing the drama with the still iconography of an early Renaissance painting.


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

amfortas said:


> Heiner Muller's Bayreuth staging is sparse and abstracted, based on luminous cubes like a series of Rothko paintings. There is a reserve and coolness to this production that is somehow in keeping with Wagner's philosophizing lovers. But providing the passionate, beating heart of it all is Waltraud Meier's fiery Isolde. Her liebestod is a transcendent moment, the final image sealing the drama with the still iconography of an early Renaissance painting.


That's also my favorite of the three I've seen. Do you think the 2007 Scala is worth watching, I am interested to compared aged but veteran Meier to this earlier performance. However I'm not exactly in the Patrice Chéreau fan club.


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Couchie said:


> That's also my favorite of the three I've seen. Do you think the 2007 Scala is worth watching, I am interested to compared aged but veteran Meier to this earlier performance. However I'm not exactly in the Patrice Chéreau fan club.


Well, I still consider Chéreau's Bayreuth Walkure the best I've ever seen (I have mixed feelings about the rest of his Ring cycle). I do think the Scala Tristan is worthwhile, the settings still somewhat abstract and minimal but the performances a little more in a realistic vein, with Chéreau's usual detailed attention to the actors and their relationships.

I guess for me, the "psychology" of the death-devoted lovers has always been a bit hard to decipher by any kind of naturalistic measure, so the more overtly stylized approach of Muller seems like a more fitting interpretation. I also prefer the younger Meier, in fresher voice--though in the later performance she does bring an added depth of insight into her acting.

So the Scala is definitely worth seeing, and for many will be the top choice among DVDs.


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Watching 1983 Barenboim at the very beginning of my Wagner/opera in general explorations marks birth of my strong scepticism towards opera on DVD.


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Why no 'none' choice?


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Tristan and Isolde and I
were strolling through the park one day
and then she held his hand
as if to say 
"I love you"
then
we pass a brook
and I fell in and drowned myself
and floated out to sea
leaving her alone with him


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

sospiro said:


> Why no 'none' choice?


When you do start looking around for a Tristan DVD, I'd narrow your focus down to the three Barenboims and the Belohlavek. Each production has its strong points and admirers.


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

amfortas said:


> When you do start looking around for a Tristan DVD, I'd narrow your focus down to the three Barenboims and the Belohlavek. Each production has its strong points and admirers.


 Thanks for your advice but not sure I'll ever 'get' Wagner


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

sospiro said:


> Thanks for your advice but not sure I'll ever 'get' Wagner


Wagner *can* seem difficult, but he's not that impenetrable once you get to know him. Sometimes it's all a matter of finding the right translation of the libretto. For example, here's a bit from the great love duet in Act II, followed by my own rendition:

So starben wir,
um ungetrennt,
ewig einig
ohne End',
ohn' Erwachen,
ohn' Erbangen,
namenlos
in Lieb' umfangen,
ganz uns selbst gegeben,
der Liebe nur zu leben!

Oh how happy 
we will be:
dead forever,
you and me.
Won't wake up and
won't be scared;
won't have names,
just us two paired.
To each our selves we're givin';
for love alone we're livin.'

What could be simpler than that?


----------



## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

amfortas said:


> Wagner *can* seem difficult, but he's not that impenetrable once you get to know him. Sometimes it's all a matter of finding the right translation of the libretto. For example, here's a bit from the great love duet in Act II, followed by my own rendition:
> 
> So starben wir,
> um ungetrennt,
> ...




Beautiful words but they would sound so much better translated into Italian

'runs & hides'


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Aramis said:


> Watching 1983 Barenboim at the very beginning of my Wagner/opera in general explorations marks birth of my strong scepticism towards opera on DVD.


The 1983 Barenboim has the best staging in my opinion (the ship is actually a ship... gasp!) let down by its lacklustre Isolde and Tristan (Matti Salminen was an excellent Marke). On the other hand in the the 1995 Barenboim, the staging is my only complaint. Of course by Wagner's own musing if there was ever a perfect production of Tristan und Isolde the world would collapse or something.


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Couchie said:


> The 1983 Barenboim has the best staging in my opinion (the ship is actually a ship... gasp!) let down by its lacklustre Isolde and Tristan (Matti Salminen was an excellent Marke). On the other hand in the the 1995 Barenboim, the staging is my only complaint. Of course by Wagner's own musing if there was ever a perfect production of Tristan und Isolde the world would collapse or something.


I'd agree about King Mark, it was only positive I've found. The staging? Well, it could spread some really fantastic, dark and chilling atmosphere if the main two singers would look, act and sing better but they spoiled all potential.


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Aramis said:


> I'd agree about King Mark, it was only positive I've found. The staging? Well, it could spread some really fantastic, dark and chilling atmosphere if the main two singers would look, act and sing better but they spoiled all potential.


Meier and Jerusalem in the 1995 is probably the most attractive pairing to date, even though the makeup artist made them look somewhat like zombies. Also the third act looks like it's set in Baghdad and everyone has just survived an air strike.


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Meier and Jerusalem in the 1995 is probably the most attractive pairing to date, even though the makeup artist made them look somewhat like zombies. Also the third act looks like it's set in Baghdad and everyone has just survived an air strike.


Yeah, Meier and Jerusalem look pale, but they also look kinda' cool. He's got the ponytail thing going, and their hair gets some added blue highlights in the second act to match the trim on their kimono outfits. Not sure what (if anything) it all means, but it's fairly stylish.

I like the third act setting--it's bleak and desolate, but that's very much in keeping with the tone of the drama at that point. As I wrote about this production elsewhere, it's Wagner by way of Samuel Beckett's Endgame--even down to the old blind watchman.


----------



## Ludders (Jun 17, 2011)

The only one i'm really familar with is the Barenboim 2007 Teatro alla Scala. Although i have a couple of others, but i'm not yet familiar enough with them.

I'm still very new to the full on Wagner Opera experience.
Untill recently, i was obessively collecting different versions of Wagner's orchestral pieces, and i thought Karajan's _Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod_ was the most wondrous thing i'd heard in my life. 
I thought i was immune to the charms of opera, until i heard the wonderful Waltraud Meier singing Isolde's Liebestod in the Zubin Mehta version on YouTube.
Now i'm hooked, and have started collecting other versions. But Frau Meier is still my favourite.


----------



## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

amfortas said:


> Yeah, Meier and Jerusalem look pale, but they also look kinda' cool. He's got the ponytail thing going, and their hair gets some added blue highlights in the second act to match the trim on their kimono outfits. Not sure what (if anything) it all means, but it's fairly stylish.
> 
> I like the third act setting--it's bleak and desolate, but that's very much in keeping with the tone of the drama at that point. As I wrote about this production elsewhere, it's Wagner by way of Samuel Beckett's Endgame--even down to the old blind watchman.


Jerusalem sold me on this version. As much as I like Waltraud Meier in many other roles, I really would have preferred an "echt" soprano Isolde. (Jerusalem's Bayreuth Brünnhilde, Anne Evans, would probably have been a good choice.)


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

MAuer said:


> Jerusalem sold me on this version. As much as I like Waltraud Meier in many other roles, I really would have preferred an "echt" soprano Isolde. (Jerusalem's Bayreuth Brünnhilde, Anne Evans, would probably have been a good choice.)


Whatever you think of the mezzo Meier singing Isolde, for me her acting is the burning heart of this icy cool production. Jerusalem, on the other hand, gives a heroic effort, but I find his acting in the crucial third-act delirium too undifferentiated--too much staggering and generalized ranting. I think Rene Kollo and Robert Gambill, in their respective DVD Tristans, give more nuanced, harrowing performances--though I wouldn't take either of them over Jerusalem as singers.


----------



## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

amfortas said:


> Whatever you think of the mezzo Meier singing Isolde, for me her acting is the burning heart of this icy cool production. Jerusalem, on the other hand, gives a heroic effort, but I find his acting in the crucial third-act delirium too undifferentiated--too much staggering and generalized ranting. I think Rene Kollo and Robert Gambill, in their respective DVD Tristans, give more nuanced, harrowing performances--though I wouldn't take either of them over Jerusalem as singers.


Yeah, that's me -- always get hooked by the voice first.


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

MAuer said:


> Yeah, that's me -- always get hooked by the voice first.


Perfectly understandable--after all, it *is* opera! 

Coming to opera from a theatre background, I tend to look at performances a little differently. That's partly why I enjoy coming here, to get such a variety of different perspectives.


----------



## CaptainAzure (May 2, 2011)

I take pride in owning no Wagner


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

CaptainAzure said:


> I take pride in owning no Wagner


A man *should* take pride in his possessions (or lack thereof).


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

CaptainAzure said:


> I take pride in owning no Wagner


The question wasn't which you own, but which you have seen.
If you take pride in not having seen any Wagner, then congratulations on your ignorance?


----------



## Ludders (Jun 17, 2011)

CaptainAzure said:


> I take pride in owning no Wagner


Why's that?


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I just finished watching the Glyndebourne/Belohlavek today. The only one I've thus far seen. I had my Tristan moment it was wonderful...I feel I've been changed, and its left me yearning, yearning for more Wagner.  I am still very much drawn to listen to again and again the music - at the moment especially in ActIII. Such beautiful, haunting music this scene opens with, other worldly. Wow.


----------



## Yashin (Jul 22, 2011)

I think out of the 4 i have -the one i enjoy the most is the Opus Arte Release from the Liceu in Barcelona with de Billy conducting
and starring John Treleaven and Deborah Polaski. I know they both have big pluses and minuses but i quite like them both. Bertrand de Billy is not my favourite conductor - too slow sometimes. The ending is one which i really love, when Polaski walks up to the window and stares out...wonderful

I quite like the 2005 Belair classique label with Jordan conducting and Oliver Py the director. I love Oliver Pye's explanation about love and death and found it very moving. The singers are not bad - Clifton Forbis has a slightly 'thick' voice for my taste. The Isolde is Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet and whilst she seemed stretched at times i thought she did a good job. 

What about the one from Dessau? I like Richard Decker


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

None of these versions...I saw it many years ago in Argentina and once in Montreal...But I bought amazing DVDs...it is much better. I love this opera, I watch it at least once a year.

Martin


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I voted and now am bumping the thread for further voting action.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Hmmm, another bump may be in order.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Originally Posted by *CaptainAzure* 
_I take pride in owning no Wagner_



Ludders said:


> Why's that?


For God's sake don't get him started. You know how those people are, once they start talking they never shut up, making all those hand gestures in your face. Very pushy.

(sarcasm)


----------



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I think I prefer listening to Tristan und Isolde over watching it. Especially the second act. I enjoy it musically, but when seen on stage it just seems to drag, with the interminable on and on about day and night, etc. When just listening to a recording, I guess it helps that I don't understand German and I just focus on the music.

I've seen only the Barenboim 2007 and the Levine/Met 2008 (I accidentally voted for Levine 1999). I thought both were good, as far as they go. But I don't connect completely with the story. Maybe I have a different perspective on the nature of love than Wagner did, I dunno.


----------



## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I've seen the Ponelle first, which is kind of like Mass Effect 3: excellent throughout, and then completely ruined by the ending. The tree is gorgeous, tho.

The Glyndebourne, on the other hand, is very beautiful. Stemme was still in excellent form, Pape is a wonderful König Marke, and even Skovhus, who is typically not my favourite, makes a very sympathetic (and gay as hell) Kurwenal. Gambill manages to decently sing his way through the endless Act III which is already a feat. I've yet to hear a Tristan where I don't go "oh my god, just _die already_". He's worse than Werther, really.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sieglinde said:


> I've yet to hear a Tristan where I don't go "oh my god, just _die already_". He's worse than Werther, really.


If you're really bothered by that during Wagner's astonishing music, may I suggest _Tosca_? Everyone gets stabbed, shot, or drowned before they have time to request their last cheeseburger.


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Sieglinde said:


> I've seen the Ponelle first, which is kind of like Mass Effect 3: excellent throughout, and then completely ruined by the ending. The tree is gorgeous, tho.
> 
> The Glyndebourne, on the other hand, is very beautiful. Stemme was still in excellent form, Pape is a wonderful König Marke, and even Skovhus, who is typically not my favourite, makes a very sympathetic (and gay as hell) Kurwenal. Gambill manages to decently sing his way through the endless Act III which is already a feat. I've yet to hear a Tristan where I don't go "oh my god, just _die already_". He's worse than Werther, really.


If you think that, you're really not enjoying the music.
It takes awhile for it to click in.
It's the most intense, gripping scene in all opera.
imho


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> If you're really bothered by that during Wagner's astonishing music, may I suggest _Tosca_? Everyone gets stabbed, shot, or drowned before they have time to request their last cheeseburger.


Stabbed, shot, drowned, or *SPLAT!*


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> Stabbed, shot, drowned, or *SPLAT!*


Whether it's splat or glug glug glug depends on which side of Castel Sant'Angelo she leaps from. However, it's possible that she's an expert swimmer and paddles off to hook up with Angelotti _nel pozzo del giardino._


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> *I think I prefer listening to Tristan und Isolde over watching it.* Especially the second act. I enjoy it musically, but when seen on stage it just seems to drag, with the interminable on and on about day and night, etc. When just listening to a recording, I guess it helps that I don't understand German and I just focus on the music.
> 
> I've seen only the Barenboim 2007 and the Levine/Met 2008 (I accidentally voted for Levine 1999). I thought both were good, as far as they go. But I don't connect completely with the story. Maybe I have a different perspective on the nature of love than Wagner did, I dunno.


Absolutely! The problem is that there is so little action that it seems pointless having a stage. The other problem is that the singers are usually mature and it beggars belief that they could be young lovers, especially in HD. A particularly unfortunate DVD of Jerusalem and Meier who look like a pair of pensioners on an outing. Mind you not as bad as a Met one with an Isolde as big as a fortress. The last one I saw was a Met broadcast - the production was pathetic and dragged interminably


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> If you're really bothered by that during Wagner's astonishing music, may I suggest _Tosca_? Everyone gets stabbed, shot, or drowned before they have time to request their last cheeseburger.


Except the Sacristan who should have been dealt with in act 1.


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

It's not a problem that there is little PHYSICAL action.
The action is much deeper psychological action.
And its chock full of that.
Physical action is simpler and more shallow and would detract from the searing
psychological depth that is the real drama.

Tristan never drags for me. The music is astonishing in what it is depicting..
And each act is a journey.
Each act flies by for me.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Absolutely! The problem is that there is so little action that it seems pointless having a stage.


_Tristan_ is hardly the only theater work in which there are scenes with little stage activity. In any number of plays and operas people do little but sit around and talk, punctuated by the occasional entrance or exit. But of course if you go to the opera just to be "entertained" you may need frequent stabbings and a few elephants to hold your attention.

Fact is, there can be a good deal of action in _Tristan_ if the singers and director are capable of expressing the characters' emotions physically. That's no more than we should expect of any stage production, and it's most certainly what Wagner expected. In rehearsal he would frequently run onto the stage and act out the part of any singer who seemed not to know what to do, and from all reports his acting was intense and impressive.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> It's not a problem that there is little PHYSICAL action.
> *The action is much deeper psychological action.*
> And its chock full of that.
> Physical action is simpler and more shallow and would detract from the searing
> ...


Yes that was my point. As the action is psychological why bother to stage it?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Yes that was my point. As the action is psychological why bother to stage it?


See post #41. .............


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Whether it's splat or glug glug glug depends on which side of Castel Sant'Angelo she leaps from. However, it's possible that she's an expert swimmer and paddles off to hook up with Angelotti _nel pozzo del giardino._


It would take quite a leap, along with some gliding, for her to hit the Tiber.


----------



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I don't need circus elephants or slapstick pratfalls to be entertained (or uplifted, or fulfilled, or whatever). It's just that the story of Tristan and the ideas behind it don't really resonate with me. I'm not old yet, but I'm not young either, and I've formed some ideas about the nature of love that make Wagner's conception of it seem a bit ridiculous. But I fully acknowledge that I may not have the depth of understanding of the work that others do.

The music is really nice though.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> It would take quite a leap, along with some gliding, for her to hit the Tiber.


Oh dear. She certainly could have planned her escape better.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

apricissimus said:


> I'm not old yet, but I'm not young either, and I've formed some ideas about the nature of love that make Wagner's conception of it seem a bit ridiculous.


I would hope we all have. But the opera isn't a consideration of love so much as of passion. The power of eros to determine destinies is amply attested to by history, and forbidden passion like that of T and I (or Romeo and Juliet) only intensifies under desperate circumstances.

Wagner needed to get the eternal, mad credo of romantic love - the belief in redemption through union with another soul - out of his system, and so he pushed both the ecstasy and the pain of it to its farthest limit in order to feel what lay beyond. Composing the opera was a kind of catharsis for him - he was in a miserable marriage and in love with a woman he could never have - and he came through it with a sense of freedom, able to step immediately into the fresh air of old Nurnberg, where the wise cobbler Sachs makes sure that impulsive young Walther and Eva don't get any wild ideas about eloping into Tristan and Isolde's "wonderland of night."

_Tristan_ is passion raised to the nth power - a level of intensity where the vessel of life can't hold it and must shatter under the pressure. The lovers know that and call upon the night - which must mean death - to make them one. The opera may be seen as a gloriously sinful indulgence or a cautionary tale, but however we want to take it, it will probably always be art's most searing exploration of the horrific yet glorious power of eros to take us beyond ourselves.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

apricissimus said:


> I don't need circus elephants or slapstick pratfalls to be entertained (or uplifted, or fulfilled, or whatever). It's just that the story of Tristan and the ideas behind it don't really resonate with me. I'm not old yet, but I'm not young either, and I've formed some ideas about the nature of love that make Wagner's conception of it seem a bit ridiculous. But I fully acknowledge that I may not have the depth of understanding of the work that others do.
> *
> The music is really nice though*.


And it can stand on that alone as a magnificent work.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> I don't need circus elephants or slapstick pratfalls to be entertained (or uplifted, or fulfilled, or whatever). It's just that the story of Tristan and the ideas behind it don't really resonate with me. I'm not old yet, but I'm not young either, and I've formed some ideas about the nature of love that make Wagner's conception of it seem a bit ridiculous. *But I fully acknowledge that I may not have the depth of understanding of the work that others do.*
> 
> The music is really nice though.


Of course, according to some, anyone who doesn't 'get' Wagner has not got the required depth of understanding. This isn't so and don't let anyone kid you it is. Just you have different tastes. That is no problem. Because I like Mozart and Verdi better than Wagner doesn't mean I lack understanding - just my tastes are different. So do what I do. Appreciate what you can and what takes your fancy without feeling in any way inferior. I trot out Tristan on my player but while I am amazed by some of the music, I can't say the drama grips me in the same way as (say) Otello or Tosca


----------



## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Itullian said:


> If you think that, you're really not enjoying the music.
> It takes awhile for it to click in.
> It's the most intense, gripping scene in all opera.
> imho


It's intense and gripping _when the tenor is really good_.

Interestingly enough, I'm never bored when it's a baritone who takes one and a half acts to die.


----------

