(Picture credit: Washington National Opera/Kennedy Center.) In September I saw Tristan und Isolde at the Washington National Opera and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. Deborah Voigt was supposed to sing but cancelled at the eleventh hour (she was replaced by Wagnerian Irene Theorin), apparently because her voice wasn't cooperating and the new artistic director, Francesca Zambello, wanted an outstanding performance for her first production in the house. Fair enough - I wish Voigt had sung but with Ian Storey confirmed as Tristan and a well-known Wagnerian as Isolde, the cast would still be first-rate, and since this opera plays a key role in my book "Isolde 1939", I really wanted to see the WNO production.
Well, the cast was first-rate, but the production (from Opera Australia) wasn't. And frankly, although the performance I attended got a good review in the Washington Post from a notoriously difficult reviewer, who took pains to emphasize the singing, I was left with the feeling that her good words have more to do with wishing Zambello a warm welcome in DC than giving an accurate assessment of what happened on stage. As much as I agree the playing of the Washington National Opera was stupendous - it is time people stopped viewing DC as a second-rate-music town - it is difficult to find words to describe how lackluster the staging was. It could've been worse - at least it eschewed gratuitous controversy and provocation and whatever directors do nowadays to get the media to talk about their brainchildren. But it most definitely was not worth me driving down from B'lem to see it.
To give you an example of how awful the staging was: the decor looked like bedsheets students would hang around in some (broke) high school theater production - actually, it *was* white bedsheet-like drapery, and it was set up in such a way that bedsheets seemed to be hanging along a clotheline too in the back, which the characters would pull around when needed to use as a curtain. The use of lights to color them in the second and third acts mitigated that unfortunate impression a little, but the visuals in the first act were terrible.
I heard other people at intermission who were confused by what was clearly water on stage in Act 1, when the action takes place in the ship. (Water *inside* the ship? How much sense does that make?) I was glad the water part actually had a purpose when the soldiers invaded the castle in Act 3 (in that act it represents the water surrounding the castle), but in my opinion it wasn't worth the trouble and the visual stasis of never changing the sets. It also meant the left and right 25% of the stage were never used (except by the soldiers in the castle scene, and that doesn't last long), which I thought was a poor use of the space. But yes, the orchestra gave a magnificent performance and I thoroughly enjoyed the singing of all involved.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to Forza del destino, which opened this weekend. (It got savaged by that same reviewer, by the way.) I loved the account of the conversation between Voigt and Zambello in the earlier WaPo article, as well as this one between Voigt and a Huffington Post journalist a few days ago, and I think Zambello has the character and the talent to make DC an opera destination.
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