greg@oliven.UUCP (Greg Paley) (03/20/85)
Some music has the capacity to haunt. For me, Wagner's
"Tristan und Isolde" goes beyond that to the point where I'd
say it has the power to obsess.
I'm not, in general, a "Wagnerite". For my tastes, his operas
mix ravishingly beautiful or powerfully impressive passages with
long, tedious, uninteresting hours of monologue or narrative.
The "Ring" bothers me particularly, although there are parts
that I find hypnotic (particularly in "Die Walkuere"). What
most troubles me is the unconvincing situation of characters who
speak with a 19th century self-analysis and knowledge of the
subconscious while acting and making decisions with the primitive
(not to say Neanderthal) minds of the Norse mythological figures
on which the figures were based. Also, the persistent use of
alliterative verse ("Winterstuerme wichen dem Wonnenmond",
"Starke Scheite schicktet mir dort", etc.) strikes me as
comical and inflated rather than conveyng the impressive
solemnity that I presume was intended.
"Tristan", though, is almost like a disease that, once
it infects its victim, never leaves, only going into
temporary periods of remission. I was first exposed to
it, as well as the other Wagner operas, in my late teens.
All of them affected me powerfully at first, almost like
a drug. The difference is that, whereas the others wore
off more or less, the "Tristan" effect grows stronger as I
grow older. The feelings it evokes are a mixture of exaltation,
sadness, and a sort of aching beauty. In fact, I find it so powerful
that there are times when I think it could be actually
dangerous. The only opera that comes close, for me, to this
kind of creation of its own world in sound which can engulf
the observer, is Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande".
The Prelude to the opera is a fascinating masterpiece in its
own. It emerges slowly from the lower threshold of audibility
with a stifled, yearning cello motif. This rises both in
pitch and dynamics to the first of many pseudo-resolutions
that occur in the opera - in fact, it is not until the very
end that the listener feels a full sense of rest. As it
progresses, new thematic material blends into what has already
been heard (I find analyses that give these themes such names
as the "Love theme", "Death theme", "Potion theme", etc.
idiotic), building a rich musical fabric that ebbs and flows
until reaching a dynamic peak in which the brass emerges from
the surrounding texture with the opening theme, but at a raw-
nerved level of intensity. This settles back into near-
inaudibility and two bare "plunks" from the double-basses
accompany the rising of the curtain.
The problem in performance is that this opera is an
all-or-nothing shot. It requires an exceptionally high
level of sheer technical skill as well as expressive ability,
verbal and musical imagination, range of color, and sheer
stamina on the part of vocal soloists, orchestra, and,
especially, conductor. I would go so far as to say that
if you haven't seen the opera with all of these, you really
haven't seen it.
The opera takes especially well to recording, but puts
heavy demands on your audio gear. On records, in your
living room, you can allow the spell to take place and
be transported to the opera's own peculiar realm without
being distracted by the sometimes painful realitites of
the stage - fat sopranos, dumpy tenors, stage noises, etc.
You can also control the dosage according to your own
length of concentration and stamina. I like to take it
one act at a time on three successive nights. I lose
some continuity that way, but I am fresh for the incandescent
vocal and orchestral writing of the beginning of act 2 and
the duet section beginning with "O sink hernieder", as I
also am for the extraordinary beauty of the Prelude to
Act 3, Tristan's delirium, the exquisite passage that
begins "wie sie selig" and, of course, the "Liebestod".
There have been a number of recordings, both commercial
and "pirated". These document some of the major contributions
by individual performers over the last half century. Some
sound, of course, better than others, but none of the ones
I have heard sound so bad that I can't hear through to the
performance. The recordings I either own or have heard
include the 1936 Covent Garden performance conducted by
Fritz Reiner with Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior
which may be unsurpassed in terms of sheer vocal opulence,
the 1952 Furtwaengler (Flagstad/Suthaus/Philharmonia),
1960 Solti (Nilsson/Uhl/Vienna Philharmonic), 1966 Boehm
(Nilsson/Windgassen/Bayreuth Festival), 1972 Karajan
(Dernesch/Vickers/Berlin Philharmonic), 1980 Sawallisch
(Behrens/Wenkoff/Bavarian State Opera), 1981 Carlos
Kleiber (Price/Kollo/Dresden State Orchestra) and 1981
Bernstein (Behrens/Hofmann/Bavarian Radio Orchestra).
Of these, there are essentially two that, for me, are able
to communicate "the" Tristan experience - the Furtwaengler
and the Carlos Kleiber (I mention the first name since
there are pirated recordings around conducted by his
father, Erich). None of the others are negligible and
some have individual contributions not matched by these
two, such as Jon Vickers' Tristan on the Karajan set (which
is, in turn, inferior to his own later work in live
performances at Covent Garden).
It's interesting that the Furtwaengler and C. Kleiber
both reach the top of the heap, because they are about
as different as two great performances could be. The
Furtwaengler is, perhaps, the epitome of a "traditional"
reading (certainly not to be confused with "dull routine")
with majestic, spacious pacing, rich and powerful orchestral
sonorities (including solo playing of extraordinary beauty)
and full, voluminous voices capable of broad arcs of sound
deployed in seemingly endless phrases. What buoyance and
ease Flagstad's top voice had lost in comparison with the
1936 performance is more than compensated for in the added
lustre and opulence of the middle and lower registers as
well as the extraordinary subtlety of both verbal and musical
inflection. It's currently available on a low-priced Seraphim
reissue with mono sound that retains its body and a surprising
degree of transparency for its age.
The Kleiber is equally masterful, but in place of Furtwaengler's
stately, massive view Kleiber offers a razor-blade taughtness
and sensitivity unique in my experience. Every phrase is
illuminated and sounds newly written, with a lightness and
transparency of orchestral texture (again, marvelous playing)
that are almost austere. The voices are light ones by Wagnerian
standards but, in contrast to Karajan's "Ring" recording, they
are not forced to distort themselves by reaching beyond their
limits. Rather, Kleiber has helped them to perform without
pushing and shoving and thereby bring unprecedented clarity and
accuracy to their parts, but not sacrificing involvement and
intensity. As a result, certain chords involving the voices are
sounded with an accuracy of pitch that I've never heard before.
For once, both Tristan and Isolde sound young, human, and
vulnerable, but not trivialized as the "Ring" characters were
made in the Chereau Bayreuth production. The other soloists
are on an equally high level.
When I first heard this recording I thought the sound was
poor, "early digital". Upgrades to my entire audio system
(particularly an Audioquest 404 cartridge in place of the
Shure V15/5) have now let me hear the power and clarity with
which the voices and the Dresden Staatskapelle orchestra are
reproduced, as well as an almost excessive dynamic range.
It has not, to my knowledge, been released on CD which is
a shame since the pressing is not up to what I would have
expected from DGG. Nonetheless, it is an extraordinary
performance.
- Greg Paley