Long Day’s Journey Into Night: Diane V. Silverthorne reviews a highly contemporary reading of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ at the Aix-en-Provence Festival

Organisers of the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival have, according to reliable sources, been consistent in their determination to overcome all possible obstacles to ensure that their new production of Tristan und Isolde with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, postponed from last year, would take place this summer, come hell or high water. Seas there certainly were, in the filmic, and at times film noir-like effects of Simon Stone’s production, neither flat-calm nor storm-ridden. Instead, in Act I, they flowed restlessly onwards towards Cornwall, in synchronicity with the ebbing and flowing of Wagner’s endless melody. Of ships, there were none.