Love’s Labours Won: Matthew Rye reviews a production of ‘Tristan’ that draws parallels between opera, literature and biography

Review of Tristan und Isolde, directed Pilavichi, conducted Brogli-Sache, Lübeck, 2014.

November 2014, Volume 8, Number 3, 62–4.

After its groundbreaking Ring cycle (reviewed on DVD in TWJ, July 2012) and perceptive Parsifal (reviewed in TWJ, November 2013), Theater Lübeck has now added a fascinating take on Tristan to its Wagnerian portfolio. The defining feature of Anthony Pilavachi’s direction of all three works has been his ability to make compelling human dramas of these oft-reinterpreted masterpieces. His broad remit has been to set them in the context of the theatre’s ongoing celebration of the city’s most famous literary son in its ‘Wagner meets Mann’ strand.