[This from the current NZZ. I'm dying to hear Haitink's new recording
of Tristan und Isolde, which was played in this recital nine days ago in
London. Has anyone heard the recording yet?]
Haitink/Wernicke "Tristan und Isolde" at Covent Garden
The Lives of Red and Blue
If you just could disappear in the music! Totally be made one
with it, completely inwowen in it, conquered by stunning harmonies,
eroticised by the wonderful singing, then you are all traitors in
Wagners "Tristan und Isolde". Disappointed, fooled, betrayed, illoyal;
those are the keywords of the text. Only one thing is an exception
from this formula; and that is the musick itself. Just therefore
the name of the undiscutable victor at Covent Garden, Londons most
famous operahouse, which hasn't seen a "Tristan und Isolde" in 18
years, Bernard Haitink, who is the musical chief of the place.
Haitink is a quiet musician, who doesn't like show and spectaular
gestures. Right therefore it is the impression, that this "Tristan",
on record, really not reveals its special charm. The storming
hailing of the conductor by the audience would well be completely
ununderstandable for the listener to the recording. Haitink unfolds
the "Tristan" over four hours. That means hot ignominy as well as
extreme intensity. Brutalities (that lies mainly in the first akt)
or the morbidezzery fresch accords, tempo excess as well, outpointed
soundmixes. So, a mittig "Isolde", who doesn't tell any mystery or
mythos, seen as a shape rooted in history in a always astonishing
peculiarity, on this partiture fully nightly will-less ring. So
comes this "Tristan und Isolde" in shape; without psychologic brimborium
without the implication of powerakt of animalic musicality. Modern
analytic, in foundation sceptic, far from all hagiographics. Haitink
places the heroic pair in a misantropical artistic world. There is
not that too great love agreed, which our shameful world (everywhere
around Covert Garden sleeps those who fell through the social net in
the doorways) no wiewpoint can nivellize and thereby flees in the
for ever dead beauty of the soundcanvases. Haitink examinates if
the piece can stand up against sharpcoloured commercialsigns, against
the dirty Presto of the metropolis, against the cruelty of racism
(Londons papers are full of articles on a murdered student, who was
killed because of his jewish origin). But Haitink doesn't give these
questions an answer pleading for the classical musick. He just asks
the questions and turn away from the listeners reaction. Everybody
else want something different. At least the primus motor and regisseur
Herbert Wernicke. He proves in hours that Man and Woman doesn't fit
together, that Tristan und Isolde hence cannot have each other.
Therefore there stand two large containers, which both are missing
one front, roof and wallpart, and which dance the ballet of giants,
on the stage. Tristan lives in a darkblue container, Isolde in a
red one, which both leave clear images for damadged souls, and there
are three oversized spears pointing into the containers - Abstract
images without sailiorsromanticism. The rest of the personeel,
tedious groups of people around the protagonists, roam around the
containers. Cool and disciplined like Haitink, Peter Rose plays the
man of power Marke. No chickenhut! Obviously Isolde has kept him
on distance; no kiss, no nothing. The lament of a never-won woman
keeps within ranges. Alan Titus acts loudly the Tristancompaigion
Kurwenal; The raw unsympathetic side of the want-to-have/suiciders
and Isolde-lovers is here critizised. But there are also other women.
While Kurwenal is lost in brainless 'Niebelungentreue', thinking of
every mood of his master, Petra Lang show us a Brangaene who is rather
emancipated - also from Isolde. A portrait rounded off still full
of edges. Remains the protagonists: Gabriele Schnaut and the from
the third akt indisposed forgiven Jon Frederic West. She sings
nextdoors to him, clearly, by and then firm in the high register,
seemingly without exhaustion. Thereto she wears a shining white
dress, which hardly is different from the original which Lili Lehmann
wore in the 1884 Covent Garden production. This anachronistic patch
disturbs a whole evening along. Isolde, like Tristan, therewith
offers a hopeless, obsolete, Realotheatre with which she signals with
upgiven gestures what moves in their souls, and what the music tell
us much more precisely. Here the regisseur Wernicke gcame on shame.
Maybe he thought that a personleading, which stands against his
abstract scenery and the outcircled conductor Haitink, has no chance
to keep alive. But so sings the loving pair full of compassion beside
the grave on the szene. A wonderful contrast.
Andreas Breitenstein
NZZ 20.10.2000
Mats Norrman
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