Bayreuth Festival: Our night review of "Tristan and Isolde"
Created: 07/25/2022, 20:45
By: Markus Thiel
The festival opens with "Tristan und Isolde": Stephen Gould and Catherine Foster play the title roles in Roland Schwab's production.
© Enrico Nawrath/Festspiele Bayreuth/dpa
The Bayreuth Festival has opened.
To start with, Roland Schwab staged “Tristan and Isolde” on the Green Hill.
Read our night review from the second break after the first two acts here:
Not much happens in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" anyway, where most of it has already happened before the first note.
In Bayreuth, even less is happening in a new production that director Roland Schwab took care of.
The festival opened on Monday (July 25, 2022).
Instead of action and characters developed from the inside out, Schwab and stage designer Piero Viciguerra rely on the aesthetics of their scenery.
A cornerless unit room with a ceiling recess and a similarly round floor pane.
The videos - sometimes a whirlpool in which the couple threatens to sink, sometimes a view into space - provide high visual values and are the real event.
"Tristan and Isolde" in Bayreuth: high show values
This production is a Wagner installation at least until the second break.
It sometimes sags dangerously, leaves (too) much to the vocal staff, but the music is allowed to conquer unhindered space.
At least the audience doesn't feel bothered by this: a loud ovation and a stomp after the first two acts.
Premiere in Bayreuth: audience indisposed
Conductor Markus Poschner, who recently stepped in during rehearsals, uses these gaps with high risk and wide level swings.
One understands almost nothing of the rather highly dramatic sounding Catherine Foster (Isolde) and Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne).
Stephen Gould (Tristan) improves significantly after the first break.
Georg Zeppenfeld (brand) is the only one to demonstrate how to combine intelligent beautiful singing with text awareness.
The audience is completely indisposed.
There has almost never been so much unrest in Bayreuth, the first bars are drowned out by the noise of latecomers.
A detailed review of this premiere follows.
(More about the Bayreuth Festival 2022? Read our interview with "Ring" director Valentin Schwarz here.)
