Wagner Tristan und Isolde opera to libretto by the composer. Directed 2018 by Dmitri Tcherniakov at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Stars Andreas Schager (Tristan), Anja Kampe (Isolde), Stephen Milling (King Marke), Ekaterina Gubanova (Brangäne), Boaz Daniel (Kurwenal), Stephan Rügamer (Melot), Adam Kutny (Steersman), Linard Vrielink (Young Sailor / Shepherd), Kristen Becker (Tristan’s Mother), Mike Hoffmann (Tristan’s Father), and Florian Hanspach-Torkildsen (English Horn-onstage) . Daniele Barenboim conducts the Staatskapelle and the Staatsopernchor Berlin (Chorus Master Raymond Hughes). Costume design by Elena Zaytseva; lighting design by Gleb Filshtinksy; video design by Tieni Burkhalter; dramaturgy by Tatiana Vereshchagina and Detlef Giese. Sung in German. Directed for TV by Andy Sommer. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
H’m . . . is this set in Russia among oligarchs sailing around on a $700,000,000 yacht? The live production got a lot of reviews—split down the middle. The only review I’ve seen of the disc is by Mike Ashman at page 86 of the August 2022 Gramophone. He reports that the staging is narrative-based with intense a libretto that is “not just delivered but debated, pondered over and sometimes even clearly not understood by the characters hearing it.” He also admires Barenboim’s orchestral “fluency that sounds inevitable thanks to the great secret of never over-emphasizing climaxes or motifs.”
Here’s a trailer from the Staatsoper unter den Linden—it looks like the whole thing was shot through a scrim. Very strange:
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