Search - Wagner - Tristan und Isolde / Heppner, Eaglen, Pape, Dalayman, Ketelsen, Metropolitan Opera on DVD

Requires effort - but enrapturing

Andrew Freborg | Stow, Ohio United States | 07/26/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Tristan and Isolde is not light fare by any means ... Like any great masterwork the experience requires something of the mind - coalescing/processing the sound, words and visuals. Snobs asside, one of the beauties of all perfomance art is the individual imperfection and uniqueness, though I find very little "imperfect" here. I especially found myself drawn to Eaglen's Isolde - very human, real - the sparse sets and underplayed gestures, at least for me, promoted a more intense expression of the inner feeling - esp. her ending experience of love in the eternal. My favorite opera!

One small "distraction" -- I found the toy medieval soldiers and castles in Tristan's death scene somewhat silly - They seemed more of an afterthought and clashed with the overall elegant design of the staging. I think something more simple with lighting or scrims may have been better."

Marvellous Achievement

Joseph Curwen | 02/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Complaints! Complaints! Tristan and Isolde was not performed at the Met for 16 years until 1999 because they couldn't even find anyone at all who could sing Tristan & Isolde 'live' on stage. In the studio, it is possible for small-voiced singers to take on Isolde & Tristan. But on stage? Impossible. That's why it took 16 years for Ben & Jane to appear. And what do they get - some ignorant person bashing their performance. Fact is Tristan & Isolde are among the 2 toughest role in the entire operatic repertoire. Jane & Ben does a magnificent job. We have been pampered too much by Nilsson's Isolde when Nilsson was in her prime. It is not really fair to compare Eaglen with Birgit Nilsson. Nilsson is very unique - there's only Birgit Nilsson & that's it. Jane is no Nilsson but she does a great job in her own way. Similarly Ben is no Jon Vickers. But he has his strengths. Stop bashing this DVD - we are lucky that the Met decided to release this - so much the richer for having yet another Tristan to look and listen to."

Something weird is going on here . . .

Joseph Curwen | 12/05/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you have bothered to peruse the reviews on this particular DVD you may have noticed some negative postings, all giving it one star & vague reasons as to why it was given one star. They all have the same comments & if you bother to look at that particular person's other reviews, you will notice that their aren't any. At the risk of sounding consiracy-happy it seems that certain person(s) want to discredit this performance for some dark, eldritch reason known only to themselves.

I personally rather liked it, the staging maybe be modern, but not in the sense that all sorts of odds & ends are thrown in to bewilder the average person and give the director a faux sense that that they have created something 'deep' or 'relevant' to whatever view they are trying to thrust on the public. I'm not a big fan of Eaglen, but this is about the only thing I have her in that I have found enjoyable. Heppner does seem to be suffering some vocal problems since he tried tackling this role, so evidently the Tristan curse is still going strong. The other roles are well taken, with perhaps no real standouts, maybe Pape's Marke."