Review: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Met's New TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

For the sheer magnitude of its singing, there hasn't been anything like the Met's ecstatic new production of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE--seen a week after it opened the season on September 26--in a very long time.

This is Richard Wagner's meditation on love and death, star-crossed lovers, jealousy, contempt and mixed loyalties. The production has been updated from the time of knights and ladies to "a contemporary wartime setting," according to the program, with a noir-ish feeling in grays and blacks (except Isolde's red dress at the opera's end) conceived by director Mariusz Trelinski. A film and theatre director who made his debut at the Met last year with Tchaikovsky's IOLANTA/Bartok's BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE, he seems much more in tune with the rhythms of opera than other crossovers to the house. I can't say that I was swept away by Boris Kudlicka's scenic design--with Marc Heinz's lighting and video projections by Bartek Macias--but they certainly fit the director's concept, as did the monotone costumes of Marek Adamski.

The opera is outrageously demanding on the singers--more later--but no less on the instrumentalists of the great Met orchestra. In a score that some great musicians of the past dismissed as "unplayable," here, under the sure baton of Sir Simon Rattle, the energy never flagged for a moment. The opera relies on the orchestra, through its motifs and modulations, to carry us along on this journey, in sorrow and in frenzy, and the Met's players did so brilliantly with Rattle.

Nina Stemme is the soprano of the moment for the company (and elsewhere) in this repertoire. She doesn't do it with the stainless steel lungs of a Birgit Nilsson who owned the role in the late '50s and '60s, but with a warmer, more supple approach. Her Isolde built, note by note, from her first moments on stage until her transfiguration in Act III. Think of hers as a kind of Ingrid Bergman (another Swede!) approach--part CASABLANCA, part NOTORIOUS: Less princess and more woman, but always sure of herself. She lays her claim to the role from her declaration of pride and anger in Act I, to the great love duet in Act II and through to her mesmerizing "Liebestod" (Love/death) aria at the end of the opera.

So was her Tristan, for that matter, with tenor Stuart Skelton triumphing over this brutal role like he was singing some ditty from nursery school. His portrayal excelled, again and again, from his first moments on stage until he dies in her arms nearly five hours later. Dramatically, in this production at least, his role seemed almost more demanding than Isolde: He grows from impassive captain of the ship taking Isolde as bride to his foster father, King Marke, to potion-driven innamorato and, finally, to the traumatized, dying soldier, delirious with thoughts of the past and dreams of Isolde. Skelton grabbed the role by the neck and throttled it into submission, with a voice that was, at once, strong and sweet, soft and trumpeting, and vivid in every respect.

As King Marke, bass Rene Pape was spellbinding in his long Act II monologue, physically powerful and commanding attention from the moment of his entrance, the music pouring out of him like honey. Ekaterina Gubanova's rich mezzo was the surprise among the cast, bringing more than the usual dramatic and vocal heft to the role of Bragane, Isolde's servant, while bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin brought stature and strength to the role of Kurwenal, Tristan's manservant.

When all the pieces fall together, opera can sweep us away like no other art form. Happily, the Met's new TRISTAN UND ISOLDE provided one of those nights.