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74 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Foolishness, April 19, 2001
This review is from: Wagner - Tristan und Isolde / Mehta, West, Meier, National Theatre Munich (DVD)
There is so much to hate about this insipid production that it is easy to miss what's good about it. Namely, Waltraud Meier. But this great singing actress's fascinating voice and spectacular cheekbones are completely lost in the nonsense of this production. This is an anti-production, which means that just about any concept you can imagine on the stage would be better than this.
The first act opens on the deck of a wacky post-postmodern yacht complete with lounge chairs and cocktails (in frosted glasses with straws -- these will later be used to foist the love potion upon us). Think Miro's drunken nightmare of sad-clown velvet paintings. Isolde's costume couldn't be more distracting. It is supposed to be a wedding dress. This shabby schmatta hangs like a thrift shop special, unaccountably decorated with what appear to be hot-pink felt hearts glued haphazardly to dirty sleeves. But even all this is overcome by Meier's miraculously ferocious singing. As Tristan, on the other hand, West can't sing to save his soul. He plays the knight as a big blustery fratboy as he barks out the music, so strained in some places that one fears for his heart. Until he drinks the potion, he seems to believe that he's about to get lucky. To make matters worse, half his face is covered with shaving cream for most of the act (we are supposed to imagine that Isolde has inconsiderately interrupted his toilette).
The second act begins with more promise, on a big purple and green set with Isolde much more handsomely dressed. A big yellow sofa splotched with more pink hearts noisily appears, however, only to be thrown upside down by the now seriously stressed tenor. It's hard to describe how bad he is. Moreover, when the two start to get busy, climbing all over the couch, he takes off her gown to reveal the absurd 1st act wedding dress again!
The third act sports what the cover calls an "optimistic" ending (!?!?!?!). Meier's passionate Liebestod is marred by a still living Tristan stupidly grinning as she sings it. The last tableau, after they have wandered blissfully off the stage, of two white coffins, comes off as a senseless nod to the meaning of the text.
Marjana Lipovska, as Brangaene, is good actress, but her voice is strained. Kurt Moll's King Mark is stolid and predictable. Weikl is way beyond his prime, and his Kurvenal falls apart shortly after he opens his mouth in the first act.
The good news is, we probably won't have to endure long in a world where this is the only DVD of Tristan. The Met's great recent production with Ben Heppner and Jane Eglan has become available on DVD. Hallelujah.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Watch it for Waltraud!!!, July 1, 2006
This review is from: Wagner - Tristan und Isolde / Mehta, West, Meier, National Theatre Munich (DVD)
I'm one of those operalovers who's able to disregard props and sets and costumes that don't accord with my ideal vision of the opera. I rolled my eyes at the frosted tropical-cocktail glasses (straws! decorative fruit!) but I was able to get past them. When you have first-rate performers in a production like this, they make the staging and costumes work for them: the ideas come across much better than you'd expect.
And by "first-rate" I refer in the mildest, most neutral, qualitative terms to Meier's brilliantly calibrated (both vocally and emotionally) performance. In my book, she's simply the most complete Isolde ever. Flagstad, too placid temperamentally but plenty of voice, of course. Nilsson, plenty of voice but she can't really convey the tenderer moments of the character, like "Er sah mir in die Augen, sein Elend jammerte mich" etc.. Margaret Price, Martha Mödl, Helga Dernesch, all present facets of Isolde's character but Watraud Meier offers a really encyclopedic Isolde. Ever glance, every gesture, every shade of expression, illumines the character she's singing.
And the singing!!! The whole first act is just magnificent!! Imagine Eaglen or Voigt throwing themselves into Isolde's bitterness and anger to the extent Meier does! That kind of ferocity is just not in their arsenal! Meier is completely in control yet her impassioned outbursts are unhinged, frightening in their intensity. To see her shift gears and fall in love with Tristan so convincingly and with such melting singing is just a hint of the marvels to come in the later acts.
I'm not a big fan of close-ups of singers when their singing strenuously but when the singer's apparatus is as fascinating to look at as Waltraud Meier's, I'm a convert!! I love seeing her really unhinge her jaw and deliver that thrilling focussed sound of hers. And nowhere does she show the slightest signs of strain. She remains ravishingly beautiful, an ecstatic priestess one moment, the next a wounded bird of prey, the next a young girl falling in love, and all sung with such grandeur and such vividly pronounced words. I can scarcely believe this astonishing performance can be contained on two little silver disks. They seem such a mundane pair of objects to hold such a volcanic and magisterial Isolde.
Jon Frederic West is sorely tested by Act III (and who wouldn't be?) and Bernd Weikl can only bark Kurwenal's music. Marjana Lipovsek does surprising well with her ungainly voice until she gets to "Einsam wachend..." where she just doesn't have the technique that would allow her to phrase musically. Kurt Moll makes a sumptuous Marke but doesn't quite tell the story as rivetingly as René Pape but this is Waltraud Meier's show and one well worth watching.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meier's Transcendent Isolde, January 10, 2005
This review is from: Wagner - Tristan und Isolde / Mehta, West, Meier, National Theatre Munich (DVD)
My first reaction to viewing this remains the same: "Wow!"
Some will immediately be put off by Peter Konwitschny's production, but if you give it a chance, it works as complete musical theatre. (A few touches could've been left out, e.g., Tristan's face half covered in shaving cream for most of Act I.)
Act I finds Isolde and Brangane on the deck of a faux post-modernish luxury liner, Isolde distraught in a wedding gown and veil, Brangane reclining on a yellow and white chaise lounge sipping cocktails from frosted glass with a crazy straw. Somehow, it all makes sense.
Waltraud Meier is an Isolde of such intensity that I doubt the role has ever been more completely "felt" by any singer. We know this singer has some strain at the top of her voice yet, here, it serves to match the expressivity and intensity of her face and action. Thus, we are treated to an Isolde of such sensuality and grief, one who's entire body registers every note of rage, despair, revenge and longing. When
One of my favorite few seconds in all of opera is the closing of Act I from the moment Kurwenal belts out "Heil, Tristan" and the sailors are "heil"ing all over the place. Bernd Weikl's Kurwenal makes this moment one of the most magical musical highlights of this production. As Tristan and Isolde are separated, Tristan marches on to meet his King, as Brangane pushes her Mistress on, Meier's arm raises to shield her eyes from the vision of her new life. Musically and visually this is tremendous.
Jon Frederic West has some tough moments as Tristan, more often than not we find him barking and at times he looks and sounds like he's going to explode. Nonetheless, he gets most of the notes and at times, especially in the Act II Liebesnacht can sound lovely.
Act II is staged in a modernist rendition of a forest to which Tristan drags a bright yellow, flowered sofa(!) where most of the Liebesnacht is sung, each lover holding a burning candle in the palm of their hand. Some of the most beautifully sung music occurs here as Brangane sings her watch/warning. Marjana Lipovsek, who sounded a little strained in Act I, here is mindboggingly radiant as she pulls votive candles from her robe, lighting one from another and setting them about the stage. At the climax of the duet, Konwitschny has every stage light and house light come on in less time than it takes to blink and we realize the stage is filled with Marke's soldiers and the scheming Melot. It is an audible gasp inducing moment of theatre.
As Marke, Kurt Moll's famous resonant bass is breathtakingly secure, still firm and the man knows how to command a stage like few others. That voice is a miracle of sound combining power and beauty.
Act III is magnificently staged and acted, once you get past the dirty room, with a dirty white radiator, and large dirty French windows. We find Tristan slumped in an arm chair - everyone's entrances are made through a back door. Brangane appears at the window, but the loyal Kurwenal bars her entrance by locking the windows as soldiers come in and at the height of the musical frenzy Brangane violently smashes the windows and climbs into the room. Tristan and Isolde have fled the stage down the ever present central steps leading to a level below a false proscenium. Here they remain each on opposite sides of the stage as they slowly, despite the imploring of Marke and Brangane, pull the stage curtain closed, closing themselves off from the rest of the world. In front of the curtain, Meier begins perhaps the slowest Liebestode, maintaining the line impressively and builds it into an ecstatic, transcendent experience that mere words cannot begin to do justice to. The camera remains fixed on that glowing, expressive face and I felt as though Isolde was singing to me alone. At its conclusion Tristan and she smile and embrace as she slowly leads him into the darkness, his face beaming with love at her. As they disappear the curtain slowly opens and the opera's final image is of King Marke and Brangane standing beside two white tombs surrounded by white flowers; breathtaking causing my tear ducts to let loose. It is perhaps the most satisfying and strikingly beautiful ending I've seen to this great opera.
After the final curtain and the final notes have faded it is a full 10 seconds of complete silence before the house erupts into a frenzy.
Zuben Mehta conducts the Munich forces with control and restrained passion and the orchestra responds with playing of ravishing beauty. In particular the Act III prelude which is so gorgeously played I had to repeat it before continuing with the act.
Even the curtain calls here are thrilling, and after the final solo bow, for Meier, the curtain opens to reveal the orchestra who have magically appeared on the stage, as Mehta leads the entire orchestra en masse down to the footlights to the wild cheering of the crowd. It too is a magnificent moment.
This DVD probably is not for everyone but if you're one of those who can get past some of the small bizarre touches (admittedly, several of my friends could not), this Tristan will prove to be a profoundly moving experience.
p.
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