Death Wishes: Barry Millington sees two productions of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ that reflected the effects of the pandemic in both dramatic and practical ways

Reviews of Tristan und Isolde, directed Warlikowski, conducted Kirill Petrenko, Munich, 2020 (streamed); Tristan und Isolde, directed Dooner (after Lehnhoff), conducted Ticciati, Glyndebourne, 2021.

November 2021, Volume 15, Number 3, 68–72.

It was a summer of Tristans in the shadow of Covid. With new productions in Munich and Aix-en-Provence (see preceding review in this issue) and a revival at Glyndebourne all affected in different ways by the pandemic, there was abundant opportunity to see the work in a new light. A fascinating article by Paula and Edward Bortnichak in Opera offers a persuasive reading of the work as the progress of viral infection in an individual (i.e. Tristan) and in his associated community (i.e. Cornwall), with Isolde as the personification of the disease agent (i.e. the virus). While Glyndebourne was forced to reduce its revival of Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 2003 production to the status of a ‘concert staging’, by Daniel Dooner, with a full orchestra seated on the stage, both the Bayerische Staatsoper production, featuring the delayed and much-anticipated debuts of Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros in the title roles, and that at Aix, starring Stuart Skelton and Nina Stemme, were notable for an emotional coolness bordering on froideur, in part generated by Covid distancing, though also the product of directorial choices.