Feb. 25th, 2009 12:06 am
Tristan ♡ Isolde 2 ☻
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muckefuckYes, my dears, the napping paid off: I won't say my lids never lowered during four-and-a-half hours of Wagner, but my ears were always open. Amazingly, the drama was if anything less static than I had remembered it. And if I teared up during the last "Liebestod" I heard, I don't remember it.
First the bad: The blocking was terrible. I know I always have some complaints about this, but this time around was really amateur hour. Even allowing for some stylisation, the fight scenes were just ludicrous. The smallest mercy was the lack of any big choral numbers, so we were spared the spectacle of a large band awkwardly entring and exiting. The one time there was a crowd on stage, in fact, it was particularly bad. Halfway through his aria, King Marke heads upstage for no reason whatever; half his retinue exeunt, the other half just turn and stand where they are as he suddenly turns around and sings for another five minutes. It may just be the most senseless bit of business I've ever seen in a Wagner opera.
Then there was the conducting. I'm not fond of Davis. It's perverse to put a man with no real sense of dramatic inflection in charge of an opera orchestra of all things. He just wants to make everything pretty which, as Nuphy put it, consists of "turning everything into purée". Isolde's Narration and Curse was so limp that I kinda of forgot it was going on until she got to the last line, something that should be impossible to do. The first act had significant chunks of elevator music, in fact. The best I can really say is that things got better as we went along. After all, they could hardly have gotten worse.
I'm also not a big fan of Voigt. In general, there are few sopranos with voices I truly enjoy listening to; through no fault of her own, Voigt is not one of them. It's also a voice which, for whatever reason, sounds better the closer it is to a microphone. I had no problems with it in the Met simulcast of Damnation, but sailing across nearly the full length of the Lyric above a Wagnerian orchestra is another matter entirely.
Happily, it was another matter entirely with the male leads. Forbis has a true Heldentenor and I could listen to him all day. If this is what he sounds like with a cold, I can't wait to hear him at full strength. Last time we saw Tristan und Isolde at the Lyric, René Pape sang King Marke, which is much more talent than you normally see thrown at such a relatively small rôle. I thought we'd never get that lucky again, but we almost did with Stephen Milling. His voice isn't quite as beautiful, but his acting is, if anything, better. At least I found myself more rivetted by the tragedy of the aged king cuckolded and betrayed by the one man he trusted absolutely than even by the deadly fate of the star-crossed lovers. At least they get sweet release while he's left on a field of dead men and broken dreams.
That field, incidentally, is one of the strongest compositions in all of Hockney's design. All three sets incorporate a raised platform upstage centre which is a godsend to those of us in the cheap seats. Too bad more couldn't have been rigged with us in mind. The vast gulf in Act 2 has its bottom revealed when the lights of dawn flood it and if you're in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bunj and e.'s seats, you can even see the net that catches the torch Isolde flings in. We're also all high enough up to easily spot entrances and exits that are well-concealed from the main floor (most ridiculously during the last act, when we see a man flung off a cliff clamber out of the net and walk off). Again, I have to blame the stage direction, since there are certainly ways to make such things less obtrusive if you know what you're doing.
As much as I liked the forms, I was less wild about the patterns and colour choices. e. was among those complaining about the nauseating effects of a swirled red-and-blue screen in Act 1. I liked that set with the exception of the worm-like squiggles on the ship's masts. On the other hand, I thought the looping pseudo-Celtic designs on the swooping boughs of the forest worked really well in Act 2; the biggest problem with that set was a castle that was too Disney-literal to complement the abstracted tree trunks. All three scenes had excellent aerial elements, from the playful sails in Act 1 to the sheltering branch in Act 3.
So it's even more of a shame that the set designer and the lighting designer seem not to have consulted much. I loved what the blue light did to the woods in Act 2, establishing it as a special world that is drained of all magic by the harsh light of day. Unfortunately, it did terrible things to the female leads' costumed, turning Brangräne's yellow gown 70s awful and making poor Voigt into a hideous orange buoy. Of all the principles, she was worst served by her couture; she must be paying the price for not being a part of the LA cast.
My condolences to e. andbunj, by the way, for having to put up with some truly awful seat mates. I didn't do too badly, having only to deal with a couple of unconscious rustlers--one of whom I effectively silenced with the Stare of Death. The other was a consummate philistine, from her squeaky sneakers to her rustly plastic bags. I heard her holding forth at one of the intermissions, criticising such details as the lovebirds' talking about themselves in the third person during the famous love aria. It's called genre, moron; go back to watching "The Secret Life of Bees" or whatever.
First the bad: The blocking was terrible. I know I always have some complaints about this, but this time around was really amateur hour. Even allowing for some stylisation, the fight scenes were just ludicrous. The smallest mercy was the lack of any big choral numbers, so we were spared the spectacle of a large band awkwardly entring and exiting. The one time there was a crowd on stage, in fact, it was particularly bad. Halfway through his aria, King Marke heads upstage for no reason whatever; half his retinue exeunt, the other half just turn and stand where they are as he suddenly turns around and sings for another five minutes. It may just be the most senseless bit of business I've ever seen in a Wagner opera.
Then there was the conducting. I'm not fond of Davis. It's perverse to put a man with no real sense of dramatic inflection in charge of an opera orchestra of all things. He just wants to make everything pretty which, as Nuphy put it, consists of "turning everything into purée". Isolde's Narration and Curse was so limp that I kinda of forgot it was going on until she got to the last line, something that should be impossible to do. The first act had significant chunks of elevator music, in fact. The best I can really say is that things got better as we went along. After all, they could hardly have gotten worse.
I'm also not a big fan of Voigt. In general, there are few sopranos with voices I truly enjoy listening to; through no fault of her own, Voigt is not one of them. It's also a voice which, for whatever reason, sounds better the closer it is to a microphone. I had no problems with it in the Met simulcast of Damnation, but sailing across nearly the full length of the Lyric above a Wagnerian orchestra is another matter entirely.
Happily, it was another matter entirely with the male leads. Forbis has a true Heldentenor and I could listen to him all day. If this is what he sounds like with a cold, I can't wait to hear him at full strength. Last time we saw Tristan und Isolde at the Lyric, René Pape sang King Marke, which is much more talent than you normally see thrown at such a relatively small rôle. I thought we'd never get that lucky again, but we almost did with Stephen Milling. His voice isn't quite as beautiful, but his acting is, if anything, better. At least I found myself more rivetted by the tragedy of the aged king cuckolded and betrayed by the one man he trusted absolutely than even by the deadly fate of the star-crossed lovers. At least they get sweet release while he's left on a field of dead men and broken dreams.
That field, incidentally, is one of the strongest compositions in all of Hockney's design. All three sets incorporate a raised platform upstage centre which is a godsend to those of us in the cheap seats. Too bad more couldn't have been rigged with us in mind. The vast gulf in Act 2 has its bottom revealed when the lights of dawn flood it and if you're in
bunj and e.'s seats, you can even see the net that catches the torch Isolde flings in. We're also all high enough up to easily spot entrances and exits that are well-concealed from the main floor (most ridiculously during the last act, when we see a man flung off a cliff clamber out of the net and walk off). Again, I have to blame the stage direction, since there are certainly ways to make such things less obtrusive if you know what you're doing.As much as I liked the forms, I was less wild about the patterns and colour choices. e. was among those complaining about the nauseating effects of a swirled red-and-blue screen in Act 1. I liked that set with the exception of the worm-like squiggles on the ship's masts. On the other hand, I thought the looping pseudo-Celtic designs on the swooping boughs of the forest worked really well in Act 2; the biggest problem with that set was a castle that was too Disney-literal to complement the abstracted tree trunks. All three scenes had excellent aerial elements, from the playful sails in Act 1 to the sheltering branch in Act 3.
So it's even more of a shame that the set designer and the lighting designer seem not to have consulted much. I loved what the blue light did to the woods in Act 2, establishing it as a special world that is drained of all magic by the harsh light of day. Unfortunately, it did terrible things to the female leads' costumed, turning Brangräne's yellow gown 70s awful and making poor Voigt into a hideous orange buoy. Of all the principles, she was worst served by her couture; she must be paying the price for not being a part of the LA cast.
My condolences to e. and
bunj, by the way, for having to put up with some truly awful seat mates. I didn't do too badly, having only to deal with a couple of unconscious rustlers--one of whom I effectively silenced with the Stare of Death. The other was a consummate philistine, from her squeaky sneakers to her rustly plastic bags. I heard her holding forth at one of the intermissions, criticising such details as the lovebirds' talking about themselves in the third person during the famous love aria. It's called genre, moron; go back to watching "The Secret Life of Bees" or whatever.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Did you happen to see the Met simulcast of 'Tristan' last year?
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I was curious about the Hockney sets. Brief surfing turns up this, which I take to be the beginning of Act III. Also this on the Lyric page, which I take to be the ship in Act I. I dunno, that 2nd one is a little strange. I love Hockney, but his aesthetic seems a bit distant from RW.
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