Past Production Reviews
4Act II of Tristan und Isolde is the ‘beating heart’ of the opera and its anxious beats can be clearly heard in its opening music. The following 70-or-so minutes have almost continuously melodious music, often with unresolved, aching, harmonies. Tristan and Isolde are infatuated with each other after their true feelings are unleashed by a potion and their illicit passion can only be consummated through the blessed oblivion of eternal night. Wagner’s intoxicating music draws the listener uniquely into the powerful trajectory of the characters’ abandoned emotions – or at least it should. As is to be expected, the LSO played superbly for Daniel Harding who seems to have a keen ear for orchestral detail and kept a propulsive control on the sweeping arcs of Wagner’s incandescent music. More importantly from where I sat, the singers were never drowned by the climactic outbursts and there was a palpable frisson to the moments of ecstasy and great portent.
Only after the intermission does the evil germinate: The black clothes of mezzo Christianne Stotijn (Humans) and baritone Mark Stone (Death) mark the mood. The latter impresses with an excellent pronunciation of the German vocal text. / Erst nach der Pause keimt das Böse auf: Die schwarze Kleidung von Mezzo Christianne Stotijn (Menschen) und Bariton Mark Stone (Tod) markiert die Stimmung. Letzterer besticht mit einer exzellenten Aussprache des deutschen Gesangstexts.
The climax, however, was still waiting, for Adès really hit the mark with the Totentanz setting. The theme is immediately touching and one is thrown somewhere into a tableau that feels as if it were right between Mahler's "Lied von der Erde" (in the farewell-death phase) and Bartók's "Bluebeard's Castle" (in the dialogue of death with a second person). But Adès finds his own dramaturgy and, above all, fantastic sound developments for the "unspeakable" that Death - in persona of the powerful baritone Mark Stone - serves us here. / Der Höhepunkt aber wartete ja noch, denn mit der Totentanz-Vertonung ist Adès tatsächlich ein Wurf gelungen. Die Thematik berührt unmittelbar und man ist irgendwo hineingeworfen in ein Tableau das sich anfühlt, als wäre es genau zwischen dem Mahlers „Lied von der Erde“ (in der Abschieds-Todes-Emphase) und Bartóks „Blaubarts Burg“ (im Dialog des Todes mit einer zweiten Person). Doch Adès findet eine eigene Dramaturgie und vor allem fantastische Klangentwicklungen für das „Unsägliche“, was der Tod – in persona des mächtigen Baritons Mark Stone – uns hier auftischt. (Mehrlicht)
