Why the Royal Opera’s New Tristan Should be Applauded, not Booed
Last night I attended the premier of the Royal Opera’s new production of Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Antonio Pappano and directed by Christof Loy. As has become routine with this most conservative of audiences, the production team was loudly, yobbishly booed.
First, it implies that Loy and his team have been less than honest in their approach to the production, that they are charlatans or impostors. But there’s nothing to support this view at all. You may disagree with their interpretation – for example you may think that Tristan is a tragic love story – but that doesn’t invalidate it.
Second, in contrast with Loy, Pappano received a standing ovation for his conducting, those cheering him conveniently overlooking that he is Artistic Director and that Loy was his own choice as director (which he acknowledges in the programme). Not only Pappano, but also Nina Stemme – the production’s Isolde – are on record as being of one mind on how Tristan should be approached from a ‘non-heroic’ point of view. So the booing of the director doesn’t make any sense. If you’re going to boo, boo the entire creative leadership of the project. (Stemme deservedly received a thunderous ovation.)
The conservative elements of the audience seem to want an entirely literal interpretation of Wagner’s stage directions, but that approach was comprehensively cast aside by his own grandson, Wieland, at Bayreuth in the 1960s. Literalism is dead, and long may it remain so.
The genius of Wagner’s work is that it can survive truly awful productions, and Loy’s is very far from that. In fact, pace the morons who booed, it is insightful and sheds new light on some important aspects of the work.
Tristan is the by far the most compact and consistent of Wagner’s works. It was conceived and composed over a comparatively short period of time, and its philosophical underpinnings are miles from the confusion of Feuerbach and Schopenhauer that plagues the Ring. It is a work of startling modernity, even to today’s ears. It is endlessly young, and as such requires a modern response. It is our duty not to allow it to become a museum piece.
John Deathridge has argued convincingly that Tristan is not a love story, but a death story. I repeat: it is not about love, but the longing for release from the torment of love. It is not about the social mores of the 19th century like some Jane Austen novel. It has universal and timeless relevance. This deserves to be brought out by the production. Strapping Tristan into some heroic plastic armour and slapping a Cornish castle on a painted backdrop are not a noble aim for a modern production.
Can we possibly imagine that if Wagner were alive today that he would have insisted on preserving his work unchanged? Wagner was more radical than perhaps any other composer in history – especially in his use of the most cutting-edge stagecraft available – and would surely have tried to bring his opera as up to date as it could possibly be. To suggest a literal interpretation is to go against the spirit of Wagner himself.
Loy’s production is minimal in the extreme. The stage is laid out exactly the same for each act. It is divided into two sections – upstage and downstage – that are separated by a large red velvet curtain. Nearly all of the singing occurs on a steeply raked grey platform downstage. Upstage, behind the curtain, there is what looks like a banqueting hall, with simple tables, chairs and candelabras. The outside world is only hinted at with large arched windows being sketched in. The walls of this part of the stage are entirely white. It is very strongly reminiscent of the designs for the Dogme film Festen.
The chorus remains in the rear half of the stage – i.e. behind the curtain – and characters only move into the front half when they enter the ‘onstage’ action. In fact, for long periods the curtain is shut, and when it is open the figures in the background are often frozen in place, as if ‘day’ has entirely stopped.
Far from being contrary modernism, this is Loy’s way of highlighting the divide between the world of day – the world that Tristan is tired of – and the world of night, the world of Tristan’s and Isolde’s love. Das Wunderreich der Nacht (roughly: “the wonder-realm of night”), as Tristan calls it.
Behind the curtain – in the world of day, where Tristan is expected to play the part of the Hero – it is boastful, egotistical, male, false. In Tristan’s world of night – in front of the curtain, where Tristan can be himself – there is only the truth of his love for Isolde and the torment it brings.
The curtain is not without unwelcome side effects. At the ‘Insight Evening’ for Tristan put on by the Royal Opera Education Department, Pappano’s musical assistant David Syrus remarked that they were having some trouble with it from an acoustic point of view (Loy didn’t look thrilled that Syrus had revealed the existence of the curtain), and this came out in particular at the start of Act III during the extended cor anglais solo which sounded like it was given from the rather cramped wings, rendering the sound rather boxy and too close to us. Consequently the joyous alarm that goes up when the shepherd sights Isolde’s ship was similarly lacking in resonance and visceral thrill.
There was also a detail which I wasn’t certain I picked up correctly: it looked as though Loy was suggesting that Brangäne failed to give the lovers enough warning of Melot’s arrival because she was having sex with Kurwenal. (Not that they give a shit; they are by that stage “consecrated to death” as Wagner has it.) An interesting idea, but the problem was that it wasn’t possible to be sure what was going on and at least half the house must have been unable to see it at all. Though how right Loy was to have Brangäne issue her warning from behind the curtain, from the world of day.
Loy’s conception of Tristan is as a high-functioning depressive. At the opening of Act III, Tristan – sung with incredibly delicacy by Ben Heppner – is slouched in his seat, mentally dead. His existential angst is the longing for death, for annihilation, oblivion.
Heppner’s performance is open to criticism, and I think most critics will say that the role – in particular in Act II – stretched him beyond his limits. His voice cracked several times – unintentionally – under the pressure of how quietly he was trying to sing. I’ve never heard an opera singer sing so quietly, and it wasn’t by accident: he did it with Pappano’s full support. For much of Acts II and III, the orchestra were often on the very edge of audibility. Heppner reserved the heldentenor voice for the moments that Tristan is playing the hero. Thrilling as Heppner’s voice is in full cry, it belongs to the world of day. In his performance, Tristan’s true voice is muted, almost internal.
This is brave singing indeed. Never has Tristan seemed more vulnerable, more on the edge of sanity. Where most tenors have Tristan tipping into madness only when on the edge of death in Act III, Heppner has him there from the very beginning. His arrogance in the face of Brangäne’s message from Isolde is mere show.
Stemme was a revelation as Isolde, her voice holding up under the intense strain of the first two acts, giving a luminous account of the part and a near ideal rendition of the Liebestod. Most important though was her acting, which was vital to Loy’s conception. Isolde is at times wrathful, haughty, sarcastic, tender, crazed, wildly in love, seductive and longing for death. To bring all these elements of the role through is an extraordinary achievement, especially when combined with vocal beauty, clear diction and highly disciplined rhythm.
Loy’s production is not just brave in stripping the staging back to the essentials – as I said before, this follows in the great tradition of Wieland Wagner’s post-war productions at Bayreuth – but also in small details.
I’ll highlight one here, from the opening of Act II. Isolde and Brangäne argue about whether the light that warns Tristan to stay away should be extinguished. Here the light is one of the candelabras from the banqueting hall. There are three candles. When Isolde puts out the light she actually only extinguishes two of the candles, and is burnt by the second of these. A telling detail: she is not yet sure of herself, and day (the light represents the last gleaming of day in their night-world) is still a part of her world. She longs for Tristan, yet an extended debate about their love is shortly to follow. Only once they have abandoned themselves to the night is the day banished. And so it is that Loy has Tristan extinguish the final candle as their argument concludes and they embark on the beautiful, ethereal duet O sink herneider. In a production of such restraint, these details are crucial.
Tristan is almost impossible to stage, so radical is its pared down dramaturgy, so challenging is the music to both audiences and performers alike. Loy and Pappano have given us a deeply intelligent and thrilling rendition of it with a brilliant cast (I’ve not mentioned how outstanding Michael Volle was as Kurwenal or how insightful John Tomlinson was as King Mark), perhaps the best Tristan cast assembled on stage in London for a generation or more. It is a triumph of thought, of singing, of orchestral playing and of staging. It deserves to be applauded and remembered. Keep your boos to yourselves.
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You have hit the nail on the head – couldn’t agree more. This was the finest staging of a Wagner opera to be seen in London for decades, and I can’t undrestand why many in the audience booed the production team unless it’s simply that they can’t recognise genius when they see it?
I agree with the Keith, I LOVED this productton, I thought the staging and the singing and the orchestral playing were interwoven to produce a absolutely stunning experience, from which it took me about 24 hours to recover, (TRISTAN always affects me like that…..!!) I literally do not understand why people had a problem with the staging, it enabled the audience to focus on the interaction between the protagonists, which is surely the point.