Tristan und Tristan: Matthew Rye couldn’t resist the opportunity to experience ‘Tristan und Isolde’ two nights running, but the rivalry between two neighbouring Ruhr houses brought differing rewards

Reviews of Tristan und Isolde, directed Schulz, conducted Baumann, Gelsenkirchen, 2017; Tristan und Isolde, directed Kosky, conducted Beermann, Essen, 2017.

July 2017, Volume 11, Number 2, 72–4.

Only in Germany … Such is the density of operatic endeavour in the country that it is inevitable there’s an occasional overlap of repertoire between adjacent houses. It was not so unusual, therefore, to find Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen’s new Tristan und Isolde scheduled to launch the night before a revival of the Aalto Theater’s ten-year-old production just twelve kilometres away in Essen. The Ruhr may be the most heavily populated part of Germany, but its towns and cities seem quite parochial in their individual cultural ambit, and there appears to be remarkably little cross-fertilisation of audiences. (As a parallel example, our taxi driver back from Gelsenkirchen after the Premierfeiern barely knew where Essen was without his sat-nav.)