Minimal effect
Michael Tanner
Tristan und isolde
Gomdebourne
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is his most audacious work because it challenges us, in the most intense and direct way, to admit that we pay a terribly high price for being civilised, though it also makes clear that we would pay a still higher one if we renounced civilisation in favour of the gratification of our deepest, most urgent needs — but needs which we have been trained to ignore or dismiss.
Throughout its length its central two figures gradually come to a realisation, at first tentative, then ever more explicit and exultant, of what they must do to fulfil themselves. They must not only betray all their values of courtesy. chivalry, decency, leaving their uncomprehending companions bewildered, agonised, or dead; they must give up their own former identities, and literally — if anything in their world is literal — find themselves in one another. In the central duet in Act II they work out elaborately, to the accompaniment of music of boundless ecstasy, what they need to do, and then, after being caught in the act of violating all conceptual frontiers, the most shocking of their multiple betrayals, Tristan takes the first step towards the fulfilment of their goal, by allowing himself to be run through by his enemy Melot: and he takes most of Act III exploring what lies on the other side of consciousness and life itself.
But he is only able to die, and this is a characteristically Wagnerian theme, when he has attained the fullest, most precise awareness of what he is, what it is that he is killing. Self-analysis at this depth and carried out with this ferocity in itself guarantees his demise, so that his tearing off his bandages is no more necessary to his dying than drinking the potion in Act I was necessary for his falling in love.
In an adequate production of Tristan, the forces arraigned on the sides of civilisation and destructive eros must be clear, even down to the scenery and the costumes. It is one of the many shortcomings of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production at Glyndebourne that from the word go we are in the realm to which the lovers aspire, and that the crucial polarities of the work are confused. The setting is broadly vaginal, a series of narrowing concentric ovals with a final hole; there are no props, and the only variations are in the extent of the tunnel that we see, and in the lighting. There is a good deal of putting on and taking off of capes and crowns, representing the assumption or renunciation of royal status. There is almost no light for much of the time, and the odd blinding beam once or twice, though not when expected.
Movement is minimal, too, almost to the point of the statuesque. The most dynamic figure by far is King Marke, but that may be for more than one reason. The gauze curtain which separates the stage from the auditorium throughout adds to the impression of remoteness. In a generalised way the stage is beautiful, a daring innovation in Wagner production of the last 40 years.
Astonishingly, not only are the all the major singers apart from Rene Pape, a great Marke, new to their roles, but this is the first time, too, that Jiri Belohlavek has conducted the work. That really does seem to be giving hostages to fortune, and as usual fortune is happy to take them. At the first performance there was a nearly pervasive air of tentativeness, the last thing one needs in this exactly notated wild music. There were plentiful false entries, fudged words, miscalculations — such as a far too loud Young Sailor sloppily introducing the proceedings, and a far too distant chorus. Almost all the pauses which are so marked a feature of Act I were mere inert and tooprolonged silences, dissipating the tension of this usually riveting act over and over. II. The IsoIde of Nina Stemme looks magnificent, and she does some lovely things with her voice. It is undeniably. and I imagine deliberately, much smaller than we are used to in the role; and so the orchestra has to be correspondingly quieter. That meant that the stupendous surge and toss of Isolde's pain and rage, as she narrates her sufferings to Brangdne, made little effect. The sarcasm and hissed contempt in the role fared better.
Robert Gambill, like most Tristans, especially inexperienced ones, harboured his resources in the first two acts, leaving one anxious to find out whether he had any, Bo Skovhus is a merely bluff, not moving Kurwenal. Yvonne Wiedstruck is an ungainly Brangdne, and the watch-song and its curtailed reprise in Act II went disastrously off-pitch. The once-standard savage cut in the duet is hideously observed, making musical and dramatic nonsense.
However. Gambill did rise, up to a point, to the challenges of Act III, and Belohlavek's grip was firmer; this was the most promising part of the evening. As I've indicated, Pape's Marke is already an ideal reading of the great role. Stemme sang the Liebestod from the back, a wonderful sight but not much of a sound. Things may improve considerably, in which case this could be a modest success. At present it is no more than an intermittently interesting sketch.
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