A Rock and a Hard Place: Michael Fuller ponders Pierre Audi’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’ in Amsterdam

Review of Tristan und Isolde, directed Audi, conducted Albrecht, Amsterdam, 2018.

July 2018, Volume 12, Number 2, 80–83.

Pierre Audi, long-serving director of the Dutch National Opera, has previously staged the Ring cycle (1997–9), Parsifal (2012) and Lohengrin (2014) in Amsterdam. To these he now adds Tristan und Isolde, in a production which has already been seen at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. It shares with its predecessors an abstract, timeless stage presentation with an attention to detail in the presentation and direction of the characters, which together make for a compelling dramatic experience.