As
I reported last year this performance of Tristan und
Isolde was chosen for only the second live relay from the
‘Green Hill’ following Die Meistersinger in 2008. Katharina
Wagner who now controls Bayreuth alongside her half-sister Eva
Wagner-Pasquier, wishes to open up the Festival to a much wider
audience. So again the Bayreuth Festival joined forces with
the city of Bayreuth and a leading German engineering company,
Siemens, to present the Siemens Festival Night. This allowed
several thousand people the opportunity of a free event at the
Bayreuth Festplatz. In addition, the opera, like last year’s,
was available on the Internet.
As I look back on what I wrote last August as the reviewer
of this performance I was in no danger (in mid-January) of bright
sun shining on my TV screen and creating the problems I had
initially with the outdoor showing. I
had reported on Christoph Marthaler’s 2005 anti-romantic
staging of Tristan und Isolde from the theatre in 2008
and most of what I wrote both then and again last year stands
without much significant alteration. The Prelude introduces
us to the circles of light that are the light bulbs and the
recurring imagery for the ocean liner in which the ‘action’
is set. Katharina Wagner has called Marthaler ‘a master when
it comes to staging boredom, standstill and desperation’ though
whether this is damning him with faint praise I cannot tell.
In his metaphysical interpretation there is little eye contact
– or any contact for that matter - between the characters. It
must not be forgotten that Katharina had little - if anything
- to do with this production as, at the time it was planned,
the Festival was solidly in the hands of her father, Wolfgang,
and late mother, Gudrun.
As revived here by Anna Sophie-Mahler little does happen in
this Tristan und Isolde but Michael Beyer’s direction
for TV puts our attention directly onto the faces of the singers
and the truth they showed holds the viewer’s attention. In the
opera house you are distanced from the facial expression of
the singers but here we can focus on crucial small moments to
mostly good effect. Iréne Theorin as Isolde is revealed to be
quite a stunning actress and her best moment remains near the
end of Act I when she is quite deranged at ‘Nun lass uns Sühne
trinken!’ Here having drunk the ‘wrong’ potion she is beginning
to feel the effect of passion and not her death; she very subtlety
undoes her top button and then takes her pulse. Robert Dean
Smith, as Tristan, also benefits from the close-ups particularly
in his Act III ravings. As before, the other highlights include
Michelle Breedt’s concerned Brangäne trying to snatch back the
Todestrank from Isolde in Act I, King Marke’s pain at
being deceived being etched so clearly on Robert Holl’s craggy
features and the passing of the knife that fatally wounds Tristan
from Marke on to Melot then Tristan and back to Melot and finally
returned into Marke’s hands. Then significantly there is Tristan
staring straight at Kurwenal (Jukka Rasilainen) convincing me
that his coming back to life in Act III is all in his faithful
retainer’s mind. Much of this might be missed if – as a member
of the theatre audience – you were looking elsewhere.
The walls of the hold where Tristan is shown ‘lying in state’
look even more mildewed and graffiti-covered in the final Act
here on DVD than on the night of the relay. Some moments also
still look ridiculous such as Tristan and Kurwenal’s Act I hand
gesturing when the latter sings about Lord Morold, though this
is not now blown up on a huge 90m² screen.
The sound from my DVD player was reasonably faithful to the
live transmission though arguably more vivid than before because
of the work of the engineers. The voices sound mostly very even
and the orchestra under Peter Schneider’s experience baton seems
faultless and perfectly balanced though, as outdoors in August,
it still seems a little louder than you would get in the Festspielhaus.
As an extra there is a short backstage self-congratulatory
feature entitled ‘Kinder, macht was Neues!’ Sadly this urge
by Richard Wagner to future generations to ‘do something new’
has often been taken too literally. Here we get rehearsal footage,
comments and a justification for the production by those involved
and even a plug for the sponsors, Siemens.
Katharina has stated that she aims to ‘make the Festival accessible
to a wide public’ and for ‘a strategy of transparency while
setting artistic standards for future interpretations of Wagner
and winning new opera fans’. With the long wait for Bayreuth
tickets it is now more possible to keep up-to-date with what
is going on than ever before. It is no good some critics complaining
that things are not what they were at Bayreuth without the Wagnerian,
as well as the general opera-loving public, having the evidence
to discuss the work going on there. At least the recent two
DVD releases, along with the Ring CDs conducted by Thielemann,
can only help promote the debate that I am sure Katharina and
Eva surely welcome from those distanced from – what the blurb
on this Tristan calls - ‘the spiritual home of Wagner’s
work’.
This imbues this DVD with an historical importance but it is
recommended for so much more – and even though the supporting
singers are not the same quality – there are still world-class
performances from Iréne Theorin’s committed, radiant Isolde
and Robert Dean Smith’s lyrical, inexhaustible Tristan. It is
also extremely well conducted by the Bayreuth veteran, Peter
Schneider and, together with the two central performances; it
is often possible to be transported to a realm far away from
the drabness of the stage designs.
Jim Pritchard
Bayreuther Festspiele Chorus/Eberhard Friedrich 
[3DVDs: 292:00] 
