At the end, there was a broad, deep rumble, instantly exploding into a
roar that literally shook the walls.  In a deluge of a response to being
overwhelmed, the audience in the Walt Disney Concert Hall tonight became
part of music's most unrestrained orgy of sound and emotion.

This was the first act of "Tristan und Isolde," in the three-part Tristan
Project, performed the way Wagner could only dream about.  Esa-Pekka
Salonen, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and an awesome cast would have
created a landmark production anywhere, but in this magnificent fishbowl
of a hall, where every sound - instruments, voices, coughs, whispers,
shuffling feet - surrounds you with raw immediacy, the intensity of the
music was almost unbearable.  The unprecedented ovation was the audience's
way of expressing and celebrating release.

Salonen's Wagner is both impeccable (every emphasis in place, perfect
phrasing and dynamics) and "unrestrained" in the way he drives the music
to the extreme.  In Disney Hall, it meant both fortissimos that were
just too much and extreme pianissimos, appearing at the treshhold of
hearing and yet clear and glorious...  at least, until the vibrant
*silence* of the audience overwhelmed them.

Thirteen years with Salonen (who still looks about 25) transformed the
Philharmonic into a world-class orchestra.  The strings are especially
fabulous, concertmaster Martin Chalifour and principal violist Evan
Wilson turning in outstanding performances.  Grant Gershon's Los Angeles
Master Chorale sounded as if visiting from Bayreuth, even though the
singers had to produce am assive sound while positioned all around the
hall.

Christine Brewer's Isolde is fully-formed, flawless, with consistent
power from the lowest notes to the highest.  She makes you believe in
her anger, passion, exulatation.  Clifton Forbis' Tristan is more in a
state of becoming, but he is producing such trumpet-like, true Heldentenor
notes that there are high hopes for a brilliant career.  (It's not fair
to describe a Tristan after Act 1; let's check back on that after Sunday's
Act 3.)

Jill Grove's Brangane was startling; hers is a heroic mezzo with a bold,
powerful attack.  Disney acoustics may be partially responsible, but I
experienced Grove's voice as if attending a rock concert, sitting right
in front of the speakers.  Her diction and communication of feelings
were most impressive.  Alan Held sang Kurwenal's short Act 1 role with
clear, sonorous distinction, his acting belonging to a fully-staged
performance.  Jinyoung Jang sang the Steersman from the top of the balcony
with effortless ease.

Much has been made of the Tristan Project's "production values," concept
and direction by Peter Sellars, video by Bill Viola.  You have to be in
the hall to appreciate (or the opposite) the video projected on a huge
screen behind the orchestra (and blocking the view from the seats there).
If you see stills, the images look abstract - lights, fog, water, blurred
figures.  When you see the video, most of it consists of a pair of actors
taking a long walk from "infinity" to the front of the camera, where
they perform a slow and complete strip-tease.  When they are naked, they
stick their head in water (camera angles from above and from under the
water), and eventually, they blow out air.  I have no idea what it means,
but it's distracting like hell.  Before the finale, the screen goes
blank, and for the next 10 minutes, you are grateful for not having to
look.

As to the direction (meaning mostly that singers move around the hall),
there was at least one important, commendable aspect of it.  As the ship
is arriving, and the lovers are made to return to the real world from
their newly-found ecstasy, gradually all lights are turned on in the
hall, and the audience shares the characters' confusion and rude awakening
from magic into the "real world." It's a tricky business, but it works.

But beware: in the pre-concert lecture tonight, Sellars said the Tristan
Project is a 10-year-long venture, and he will keep working on it, as
the opera goes from LA to Paris, then back to LA, and "on to New York."
No details.  Ten years of tweaking "Tristan"?  A terrible thought, but
even that cannot take away from the singular, wonderful experience of
tonight's performance.

Each act of "Tristan" is paired with a work influenced by the opera.
Tonight's companion piece was Three Movements from Berg's "Lyric Suite,"
in a lucid, transparent performance, quite free of projected images aimed
at interpreting the music.  Thank heaven for big favors.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
[log in to unmask]