All the World’s a Stage: Matthew Rye reviews productions of Wagner’s last three standalone stage works in Germany and France

Reviews of Tristan und Isolde, directed Thoma, conducted Weigle, Frankfurt, 2020; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, directed Herzog, conducted Thielemann, Dresden, 2020; Parsifal, directed Miyamoto, conducted Letonja, Strasbourg 2020.

July 2020, Volume 14, Number 2, 56–61.

Was Wagner’s designation of Tristan und Isolde as a ‘Handlung’ one of his jokes? It certainly, in my experience, seems to be the one work in his oeuvre that most consistently eludes the ability to be successfully staged. Perhaps it should be seen more as a philosophically themed symphonic poem with singers, its ‘action’ lying better in the mind of the listener than in physical representation in a theatre. These thoughts came to mind after experiencing yet another disappointing production of the work, this time from Katharina Thoma in Frankfurt. Thoma’s previous work has divided opinion, not least her Glyndebourne-set Ariadne auf Naxos, which worked for me; her previous staging in Frankfurt, of Flotow’s Martha, was a hit.