Son of Felsenstein triumphs at Dessau: Barry Emslie salutes the continuation of a distinguished tradition

It will be remembered that Wagner initially saw Tristan und Isolde as a relatively modest work that would be perfectly manageable in the less grand opera houses. For all sorts of reasons that is not the way it has turned out, but this production from the provincial town of Dessau (population about 80,000) is, in respect of its highly successful and original fusion of artistic aims with practical stagecraft, an impressive vindication of what we otherwise might see as Wagner’s typically self-deluded view of the demands of his own stage dramas.