Prom 19 - 27.07.13: Wagner – Tristan and Isolde

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

5.00pm – c. 11.00pm
Royal Albert Hall

Wagner
Tristan and Isolde (284 mins)
(concert performance; sung in German)

Peter Seiffert tenor (Tristan)
Kwangchui Youn bass, Proms debut artist (King Mark)
Violeta Urmana soprano (Isolde)
Boaz Daniel baritone (Kurwenal)
David Wilson-Johnson baritone (Melot)
Sophie Koch mezzo-soprano, Proms debut artist (Brangäne)
Andrew Staples tenor (Shepherd/Young Sailor)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov conductor

The Wagner bicentenary celebration continues with the composer's boldest fusion of legend and harmonic innovation, Tristan and Isolde, which forced him to break off work on his Ring cycle - near this very juncture in the Proms Ring, during the composition of Siegfried and before the final instalment, Götterdämmerung.

Semyon Bychkov conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a cast led by Violeta Urmana and Peter Seiffert in a drama where love and death become one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OK. It's a different set of performers from Barenboim's Ring Cycle, but this must be quite a marathon for season ticket holders too.

[ARBurton]

And this one of course they`re recording for telly

[Richard Tarleton]

Peter Seiffert is a magnificent Wagnerian tenor, tho' I've only heard him live as Tannhauser and Walter (and have his Eric on disc) - not in any of the huge roles. I shall be glued to the radio. My last live Tristan was the ROH fiasco with Stemme () and Heppner

Why could we not have had casting like this for the ROH Ring - Stemme, Meier...

I think life in general forced Wagner to break off the Ring, didn't it? And he had to write Meistersinger to get over composing Tristan - a 13 year gap between acts 2 and 3 of Siegfried, during which his world view was altered by his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer....

[LHC]

Peter Seiffert has withdrawn from tomorrow's performance. Tristan will now be sung by Robert Dean Smith, who is also very good. Indeed, at this stage in their careers I think he is probably better than Seiffert (recent reports suggest he has developed a rather wide vibrato).

[Barbirollians]

Shame Nina Stemme has been singing Brunnhilde - for all her immense skill in that part she is the Isolde of a lifetime.

I saw that ROH production with the stand in Swedish tenor - I understand Heppner struggled both physically and vocally from friends who went earlier in the run . He was serviceable but she was absolutely stunning - the opening notes of the Liebestod will live with me forever.

[Richard Tarleton]

Shame Nina Stemme has been singing Brunnhilde - for all her immense skill in that part she is the Isolde of a lifetime.

I saw that ROH production with the stand in Swedish tenor - I understand Heppner struggled both physically and vocally from friends who went earlier in the run . He was serviceable but she was absolutely stunning - the opening notes of the Liebestod will live with me forever.

Indeed. I was at the perf. where Heppner broke down. It was quite a relief when Tristan died. He must have gone through agonies that night. Stemme just superb - the Wagnerian soprano of her generation.

[Flosshilde]

Tristan will now be sung by Robert Dean Smith, who is also very good.

He sang the Act 3 Tristan with the BBCSSO & Runnicles in Glasgow in April. He was very good.

[BBMmk2]

I love this opera, too. But mind you, all of Wagner's later operas are good!

[Bert Coules]

No comments yet? My listening to act two was interrupted by what I took to be a local storm-related technical difficulty when I simultaneously lost Sky, Freeview and DAB, but until then I was enjoying things a good deal - it's all on a very different dramatic level from the tedious Ring, and that despite this being Wagner's wordiest and most static stage work.

That very verbosity and lack of action can cause the piece to hover on the edge of theatrical disaster: in particular, act two contains what seems to me to be a major miscalculation on Wagner's part: a good performance can just about carry its impetus through the exchanges (the long exchanges) between the interruption of the lovers' mounting ecstacy and Tristan's deliberate self-wounding, and so it proved tonight; but a poor one can come perilously close to grinding to a total halt. And something similar happens in act three: just when you want to be getting on with it and winding everything up, in comes King Mark again...

[amcluesent]

Peeps who like this really should take themselves off to Bayreuther Festspiele and leave the rest of us with proper concerts

[BBMmk2]

It's a pity that the Prom concert programmers couldn't space the Wagner operas out more. Ok, with The Ring, perhaps not. Would it be too much of a good thing?

[David-G]

Peeps who like this really should take themselves off to Bayreuther Festspiele and leave the rest of us with proper concerts

... and perhaps (thinking of another thread) those who like Mozart should take themselves off to Salzburg?

[BBMmk2]

Very enjoyable Prom I thin though. All round first rate!

[Black Swan]

I totally agree. Just because some of us don't like certain composers or their work is not reason to say it should be isolated. I like Wagner so i am enjoying it. But have to say the Ring is the First Proms of this year I've listened to.

But am enjoying Tristan and Isolde.