Look, look, love: "Tristan and Isolde" at the Bayreuth Festival

Created: 07/26/2022, 15:54

By: Markus Thiel

A lot of aesthetic magic, little questioning of characters: scene with Stephen Gould (Tristan, left) and Markus Eiche (Kurwenal).

© Enrico Nawrath

Anyone who only needs visuals and beautiful aesthetics is well served with this "Tristan" at the start of the Bayreuth Festival.

Musically, jump-in conductor Markus Poschner does something remarkable.

Just a few more bars to the end of act one and the stars go crazy.

They spin faster and faster on this floor pane, a raging video whirlpool culminating in white noise.

Then the high couple, lying.

And for a short time one fears whether Tristan and Isolde won't disappear into this star-water hole with a loud pop, so that they will be spat out again in another, better life.

One has many such thoughts, there is time and space for this on this opening evening of the Bayreuth Festival.

Director Roland Schwab, who was only hired for this short-term production in December, has already said before: You can't actually stage the ultimate love drama in opera history, only CD or reading the score, this is the optimal pleasure.

Accordingly, the Munich went to his knees.

Before "Tristan und Isolde", before the holy place and also before the visions of its stage designer Piero Vinciguerra and the video artist Luis August Krawen.

70 years after the Bayreuth post-war opening, there is again a stage disc à la Wieland Wagner.

As if this round had broken out of the ceiling, which now reveals the view: of a starry sky, of figures that walk there pregnant with meaning or fight each other bit by bit at the end of the second act, also of mighty plant tendrils that hang down in the futuristic room.

He moves with his deckchairs between the space patrol's wellness area (act one) and the hero's burial site surrounded by candles (act three), who awakens to delirious life again and is allowed to knock everyone over.

If you only need show values ​​and want to feast on aesthetics, you are perfectly taken care of.

And if you don't want to be bothered, then too: the audience can't cope with trampling and cheering during the first break.

"It's nice that we're all sitting here together again" - that's what resonates above all.

However, if you want more than something beautiful on the edge of kitsch or magical arrangements, you will be starved for five very long hours.

After all: Schwab lets the drama develop carefully.

You understand every second what is at stake.

And yet there are only strangers on the stage.

People whose where they come from and where they are going, their inner constitution and outwardly pressing motivation are hardly visible.

It doesn't always have to be the psycho couch.

But in this version, “Tristan und Isolde” becomes a game of chess pieces, a purely overhead view, an arrangement that often only sees the actors as an ornament.

"Tristan" as a substitute for Corona cancellations

As is well known, the production was not planned for this Bayreuth summer.

Festival director Katharina Wagner wanted the largely chorus-free “Tristan” as a replacement piece in case the large-scale choral operas “Lohengrin” and “Tannhäuser” fall victim to positive tests.

It is officially shown twice if Corona wants it more often.

Only next year there will be a reprise.

Nevertheless, the direction cannot be excused with a lack of rehearsal time.

Markus Poschner, who has only been here for a good week, would have to complain about that.

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Anyone expecting a security number from this conductor will be amazed.

It will never be possible to clarify what goes to Poschner's account, what to that of the highly motivated festival orchestra.

From the very first bars, the interpretation speaks of “Warning, listen”.

With long general pauses in the prelude, generally with an unraveling (sometimes too slow) of the complex score.

And then everything takes off, races across the finish line unchecked, as in the finale of the first act.

The pendulum swings of this interpretation are high, transitions are sometimes risky and therefore exciting.

Musically, the evening is very score and effect-conscious, although some things do not always mesh with the vocal staff.

In Liebestod, Catherine Foster hurries away from the conductor, unperturbed.

At such points you can hear how much still has to snap into place.

Catherine Foster sings her Isolde with a highly dramatic aplomb – unfortunately little can be understood.

© Enrico Nawrath

She sings Isolde with an enormous, highly dramatic aplomb.

The girlish voice is almost gone, as is the articulation, unfortunately.

A tireless soprano with great potential.

Here it is only partially retrieved.

Stephen Gould begins as Tristan with the handbrake on and increases from act to act. A Wagner hero who hasn't been frightened by anything for a long time.

The man sounds rested, you have to look for erotic shimmers in other tenors.

Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne) is a sister of Isolde in her lack of large-voiced texts.

The director virtually fades this character away, reducing her to a cue giver.

On the other hand, one cannot get enough of the flexible granite baritone by Markus Eiche (Kurwenal) and his development of the sound progression from the word.

The same goes for Georg Zeppenfeld, to whom 1800 gala guests hang every word, as if they were hearing King Marke's monologue for the first time.

Otherwise, the audience affords the worst Bayreuth premiere in a long time.

The first bars are lost in the noise of the latecomers, cell phone lights shine through the rows for a long time, every few minutes something thuds on the wooden floor.

Loriot must have pulled the strings from some satirical heaven.