“Tristan und Isolde” in Bayreuth

The ship of the dead: In Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson‘s new Bayreuth production, Tristan and Isolde suffocate in a ship’s belly full of found objects and the ballast of their memories.

Perhaps they have just strayed into the theatre. The ropes of the ghost ship are hanging down onto the stage, the deck has a deep crater, as if the mast has been smashed, and while Isolde and Brangäne recapitulate the story, the heroes of yore memorise their lines at the back. Isolde describes her paper dress with texts. It is draped around her like the white wedding dress around Isolde in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s Bayreuth production, a sign of aloofness.

The spotlights only glow when the men from the real world make their brief choral appearances, otherwise the protagonists in Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson’s new production of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ at the Bayreuth Festival are completely immersed in their memories and the thick fog that wafts across the deck like foaming spray. What the two title characters have to come to terms with here remains just as nebulous. A never-realised relationship or a failed one? They also seem a little like phantoms of the opera who return to the broken boards that used to be their world at the witching hour. Undead like the Flying Dutchman, the remnants of whose staging they now continue to perform.

In fact, in the second act they have retreated to the ship’s hull, which is filled with all kinds of discarded nautical material like in many a fisherman’s parlour, but also with relics of cultural tradition such as rulers’ busts, caryatids, Caspar David Friedrich-style paintings and other ornaments. Vytautas Narbutas‘ richly detailed stage design looks like a glimpse into the inventory of a municipal theatre, furnishings that have long since fallen into disuse, full of memories for the protagonists of yesteryear.

And these are Tristan and Isolde, a romantic couple who never quite found each other and are now once again thwarted by the memories of the past. They have fled into this stage set of their proud past, from which the violent Melot will later drive them away. Tristan is already ready for the death potion and poisons himself instead of throwing himself on Melot’s sword as in Wagner. Isolde is only ready for it at the end of the third act.

The ship has now been completely dismantled. Tristan drowns in poison on a pile of memorabilia, soon looking like a found object himself. The image freezes more and more. ‘Death for everything’, the theatre scene becomes an installation, a fixed painting. The shepherd with long white sleeves wanders through the remaining set pieces like an angel of history. Isolde returns with the back wall of the ship, as if the former backdrops were moving by ghostly hands and communicating with each other. She, too, now takes the poison; the death of love is, as Wagner calls it, transfiguration again. Divas do not die. The Dutchman’s last voyage has been fulfilled. The ship of life’s journey becomes the ship of death.

So far, so poetic, if you want to embark on such a scenic journey into theatre history. Arnarsson’s production is a symbolically cluttered set piece, a dream, a premonition, a memory, but he does not stage the psychology of the characters that would explain this escapism to us today. Tristan and Isolde stand in the centre of their memory bank and sing as they always have, instead of discovering with and for us what significance at least certain individual pieces in it had for them. Where the intoxicating sublimation, the culturally exaggerated repression came from. In this respect, there is also a lot of assertion in this fundus fantasy that is not realised.

While the previous production by Roland Schwab, which was shown criminally little and pushed out of the programme after two years, expanded the view into the cosmic, here you feel locked in a cabin, enclosed in a space of memory. There is no friction and, strangely enough, no emotion. Here, too, Schwab, who moved the play on a generation at a time, was able to score more points with the old couple, who end up walking towards each other. Arnarsson does not make an urgent statement.

Semyon Byshkov‘s rather elegant conducting suits this. He develops this piece of pain in a particularly soft and gently flowing manner. The Tristan chord, which should cut so deeply into the soul, is more of a longing, mild echo in the midst of hazy memories than a desperate outcry. At the beginning, he allows the excellent festival orchestra to sound very muted from the abyss, the dynamics are driven mainly into the piano, but not also into the violent. This changes in the second act, where he allows the waves of love to surge more clearly. Overall, he favours the organic flow of memory rather than exaltation and abrupt changes of mood.

This suits Camilla Nylund‘s still lyrically beautiful voice very well; she avoids the destructive power of the high drama and is able to shape her part in a colourful way. Her memory work, which is unfortunately only illustrated rather than acted, is easy to believe. Her Liebestod still has an almost youthful charm as she describes the peacefully departed lover.

Andreas Schager is more of a dynamic hero, a tenor of great freshness and vigour, whose reserves would certainly last until the end of this mammoth role if he didn’t sometimes go over the top. He then hurls such exaggeratedly overpowered notes into the room, radiantly beautiful, but nevertheless draining, so that in the third act he has to use his singing acting to help himself over some brittle or polished notes. It remains a strong performance, but he would be magnificent if he were better organised.

The otherwise so distinctive Günther Groissböck as King Marke is not in a good mood on the day of the premiere, with a strangely queasy voice he plays down the emotion of the character. Christa Mayer‘s mezzo as Brangäne rests beautifully within herself, retaining her dark colouring even in the easily sung high notes and with a soft fullness in the depths. Olafur Sigurdarson sings Kurwenal with a rather too powerful bass-baritone, Birger Radde gives a striking tone as Melot, and Matthew Newlin sings the young sailor with beautiful lyricism. Daniel Jenz, who plays the angelic shepherd with excellent diction and a very direct tenor, also makes us sit up and take notice.

While the new ‘Tristan’ may be musically acceptable, the scenic interpretation remains uninspiring, let alone exciting, despite the elaborate stage design. That’s actually a bit low for Bayreuth.