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Tristan und Isolde, Wagner, Richard
C: Daniel Harding
Wagner and Schubert: Strange Bedfellows?

Act 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.

Lestu meira
29 nóvember 2013seenandheard-international.comJim Pritchard
Tannhäuser, Wagner, Richard
D: Tim Albery
C: Sebastian WeigleAlexander Soddy
Astonishing Performance from Sophie Koch in Covent Garden’s Tannhäuser

Sophie Koch was an astonishing Venus, making her Royal Opera role debut triumphantly. Rich and refulgent of tone, her voice was fully open; this, coupled with her sheer stage presence made her hypnotic. Perhaps Peter Seiffert was not quite her equal, and the opening scenes revealed a trait that was disconcertingly present throughout the evening: a sort of zooming in and out of focus for his voice and, indeed, his rapport with the role itself. Initially, he sounded disconnected and strained; then for a while all would be fine, as if everything was congruent once more, before strain once more crept in. He is an experienced Tannhäuser, for sure (San Francisco, Berlin State, Deutsche Oper and Zurich are amongst the opera houses that have featured him in this role), but this was not his night; the beam was not consistently on full, shall we say. Far more consistent was the clear star of the evening, Christian Gerhaher in the role of Wolfram. He brought a Lieder singer’s art to Wagner’s long lines, triumphantly: here was a strong interpretation moulded into human shape by infinite gradations of tone and flexibilities of phrasing. Lyrical and beautiful, his “O du, mein lieber Anendstern” brought the hushed intimacy of a fine liederabend at the Wigmore Hall to the far more spacious Covent Garden – yet the sound projected over the vast space perfectly. The role furnished Gerhaher’s Covent Garden debut in 2010. Emma Bell’s Elisabeth, another singer making a role debut, was magnificent. Set amongst ruins, “Dich teure Halle” needed all the magic she could inject, and her gleaming voice brought it through. Here was an intensely human Elisabeth, and we the audience felt her hopes and fears with her in the song contest.other small roles were well taken, including Michael Kraus’s Biterolf and Stephen Milling’s confident Hermann. Yet it is difficult to ignore the fact that the imperfect masterpiece that is Tannhäuser still makes its blazing mark. If Haenchen’s tempi alternated between injecting intensity and just staying the right side of feeling rushed, he remained within boundaries; and Gerhaher’s Wolfram made the evening worthwhile.

Lestu meira
29 apríl 2016seenandheard-international.comColin Clarke
Tristan und Isolde, Wagner, Richard
D: Claus GuthArturo Gama
C: Gianandrea Noseda
Tristan returns in triumph to the Teatro Regio

tage director Claus Guth focused on the passionate love story between the two, and highlighted its intimate facet by setting the action in a 19th century high-middle class apartment. Isolde wakes up in the morning in her bedroom to the nicely sung outside melody, and asks to see Tristan. The sets, designed by Christian Schmidt (who also took care of the costumes), featured a revolving structure that showed the elegantly furnished rooms of the apartment. In this way, the director was able to add some action to this otherwise quite static opera. Five hours has elapsed, and while part of the audience had left the house earlier, there were still enough spectators left to pay a big tribute of applause to all the cast members, who had accomplished the deed of bringing back Wagner’s masterpiece to Turin after a ten-year absence. And this was indeed deserved. For Maestro Gianandrea Noseda this was the first Tristan. The conductor prepared with great care for this debut, and worked out all the details with the orchestra of the Teatro Regio, which played with commitment and produced a compact, vibrant sound. The chorus, instructed by Claudio Fenoglio, contributed to the success of the performance.

Lestu meira
15 október 2017theoperacritic.comSilvia Luraghi