[Met Performance] CID:352449



Tristan und Isolde
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, March 28, 2008




Tristan und Isolde (449)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tristan
Ben Heppner

Isolde
Deborah Voigt

Kurwenal
Eike Wilm Schulte

Brang?ne
Michelle DeYoung

King Marke
Matti Salminen

Melot
Stephen Gaertner

Sailor's Voice
Tony Stevenson

Shepherd
Mark Schowalter

Steersman
James Courtney


Conductor
James Levine





Streamed live at metopera.org
Photographs of Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt in Tristan und Isolde by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

Review 1:

Review of Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times
A ?Tristan und Isolde? Well Worth the Wait

All day on Friday the word from the Metropolitan Opera was good. The tenor Ben Heppner and the soprano Deborah Voigt were feeling fine and ready to go. Finally, after respective bouts of illness had prevented these acclaimed Wagnerians from appearing together in any of the five previous presentations of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," they would sing the sixth and final performance in this ill-fated run.


As lucky ticket holders entered the lobby on Friday night, there was no official sign board announcing a cast change. Nor were there any of those ominous inserts in the program book.


Then, as everyone awaited the arrival of James Levine in the orchestra pit, came the most dreaded sight in an opera house: a man in a suit taking the stage with a microphone to make an announcement. The audience erupted with groans, hisses and cries of "No!"


"I have only good news," said the announcer, Thomas Connell, the Met's stage manager. Both Mr. Heppner and Ms. Voigt were in fine form, he stated. But Margaret Jane Wray, the soprano scheduled to sing the role of Br?ngane, was ill. Her replacement would be the mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, who had actually sung the five previous performances. Expressing enormous collective relief (if a little insensitivity to Ms. Wray), many in the audience broke into cheers and applause.


The whole point of presenting a revival of the Met's 1999 production of "Tristan und Isolde" had been to showcase Mr. Heppner and Ms. Voigt in the title roles. They had never appeared together in a production of this daunting opera and were eager to do so. On Friday, these acclaimed Wagnerians seemed to feed on each other's intensity and determination.


After missing the first four performances in the run, which began March 10, Mr. Heppner sang on Tuesday night and sounded splendid. Before Friday, Ms. Voigt had sung her Isolde opposite three different Tristans during four performances (though halfway through the second, she doubled over with abdominal pain and left the stage, to be replaced, after a 15-minute delay, by Janice Baird, who had the role to herself on Tuesday night)


Mr. Heppner again gave an impassioned, courageous and vocally thrilling performance. During the inhumanly demanding first half of Act III, when the delirious and dying Tristan goes through spasms of anguish and fury as he awaits the arrival of Isolde, most tenors consider it a triumph just to get through the scene. Mr. Heppner seemed to relish it. His singing was at once risky and commanding. Courting danger, he lunged at top notes, cut no corners, sang every phrase with maximum expressivity, utter honesty and visceral power.


And Ms. Voigt sounded liberated. With a Tristan who could match her in sheer power and vocal charisma, she, too, took risks as she sent gleaming phrases soaring over the orchestra. But what may especially linger in the memory were the moments of tender lyricism and the aching exchanges of desire during their Act II love duet.


Ms. DeYoung, Matti Salminen as King Marke, Eike Wilm Schulte as Kurwenal and the whole cast all seemed inspired. Has the Met orchestra under Mr. Levine ever played better?


Many longtime opera buffs in the audience must have been thinking about Jan. 30, 1974: the only time the great Tristan and Isolde of an earlier era, Jon Vickers and Birgit Nilsson, sang the opera together at the Met. Opera lovers can only hope that Friday night will not enter the annals as another one-time wonder.



Search by season: 2007-08

Search by title: Tristan und Isolde,



Met careers