Prom 34 (31.08.21) - Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde

[Bert Coules]

Maybe your reaction was what Wagner intended?

An interesting thought but I rather doubt it. And Wotan's Walküre monologue surely presents far more of his inner conflict than does Mark's: all he does is whine and feel sorry for himself. Gurnemanz does, as you say, provide necessary exposition which neither of the others do.

[Bert Coules]

Prommer, thanks. So I imagine that the text was out of sight for quite a portion of the audience. Tricky to do otherwise in this particular venue, I suppose. The non-sword fight might have worked visually but sadly it was a non-event on the radio.

[Prommer]

English subtitles on three (?) boards above the stage (to left and right of the ageing BBC Proms signage) and above Sir Henry.

There was no real swordplay in Act 2, at any rate, it just consisted of Tristan and Melot drawing swords, but then Tristan grabbing Melot's and thrusting it in to himself.

I clearly wasn't paying enough attention to Kurwenal's death re the swordplay!

[Ein Heldenleben]

An earpiece wouldn't be needed for amplification, would it? It's possible he was being fed the lines.

It might be that - they no longer have a prompters box at Covent Garden but they do at the Met. I don’t have a problem with prompts in a long role like this. It’s usually just the first few words rather than the whole line . Once they start singing I don’t think they can hear anything from the prompt box anyway . In fact at Covent Garden you could often hear the promoter both in the theatre and on Radio 3.

[Darkbloom]

I'm guessing the earpiece was some sort of prompting device. I remember a panic-stricken look on Nina Stemme's face during Walkure when she briefly forgot the words, before Bryn Terfel cued her. The RAH can be tricky, particularly for semi-staged opera.

[Bert Coules]

I don’t have a problem with prompts in a long role like this.

Nor do I; it wasn't a criticism. I stand in awe of any performer who can tackle these roles, whatever help they need to do so.

In fact at Covent Garden you could often hear the prompter both in the theatre and on Radio 3.

And at the Coli.

[Prommer]

Thanks. So I imagine that the text was out of sight for quite a portion of the audience. Tricky to do otherwise in this particular venue, I suppose.

Yes, eg the East and West Choirs. When I booked these were not for sale, but there was a sprinkling of people in these tonight... odd.

A separate point: no Glyndebourne chorus on stage or even in the Gallery! Piped in, I think, not live, unless I am mistaken? Shame. If they were there, I could not discern where!

The offstage band worked quite well, up in the gallery, as did Brangaene later in Act 2. Lovely. Very tricky to coordinate of course but they did quite a good job.

[Ein Heldenleben]

An interesting thought but I rather doubt it. And Wotan's Walküre monologue surely presents far more of his inner conflict than does Mark's: all he does is whine and feel sorry for himself. Gurnemanz does, as you say, provide necessary exposition which neither of the others do.

Yes it’s the only long monologue in Wagner I have a problem with largely because Wotan , Gurnemanz and Sachs (act 3 conclusion) are just more interesting characters . King Marke is just a bit of a loser - no wonder Sachs wanted no truck with his fate (in my somewhat old fashioned translation)

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm guessing the earpiece was some sort of prompting device. I remember a panic-stricken look on Nina Stemme's face during Walkure when she briefly forgot the words, before Bryn Terfel cued her. The RAH can be tricky, particularly for semi-staged opera.

Real pro Bryn - a few might have let her flounder?

[Bert Coules]

Yes it’s the only long monologue in Wagner I have a problem with largely because Wotan , Gurnemanz and Sachs (act 3 conclusion) are just more interesting characters . King Marke is just a bit of a loser - no wonder Sachs wanted no truck with his fate (in my somewhat old fashioned translation)

Excellent, and a very good point about Hans Sachs, though to be fair, it is, as you say, Mark's fate he states he doesn't intend to share, not specifically his reaction to it (though that would surely also be the case, Sach's personality being what it is).

[Darkbloom]

Yes it’s the only long monologue in Wagner I have a problem with largely because Wotan , Gurnemanz and Sachs (act 3 conclusion) are just more interesting characters . King Marke is just a bit of a loser - no wonder Sachs wanted no truck with his fate (in my somewhat old fashioned translation)

Personally I find the last bit of Meistersinger almost unbearable. Not so much the 'honour your German masters' bit, rather the banal music, which is obviously just cobbled together and tacked on because his awful wife badgered him into doing it.

[Katzelmacher]

Personally I find the last bit of Meistersinger almost unbearable. Not so much the 'honour your German masters' bit, rather the banal music, which is obviously just cobbled together and tacked on because his awful wife badgered him into doing it.

Yes, I can fully understand why so many have a problem with that bit. It really doesn’t need to be there. But then, neither (imo) does the reprise of Beckmesser’s Prize Song. Once was more than enough!

Interestingly, John Tomlinson once gave a stout defence of the ‘envious foreigners’ (sic) bit of Sachs’ closing monologue, on a long-ago R3 programme. He claimed Germans at the time of the work’s composing would have seen themselves as a target for overseas aggression.

[Petrushka]

Yes, I can fully understand why so many have a problem with that bit. It really doesn’t need to be there. But then, neither (imo) does the reprise of Beckmesser’s Prize Song. Once was more than enough!

Interestingly, John Tomlinson once gave a stout defence of the ‘envious foreigners’ (sic) bit of Sachs’ closing monologue, on a long-ago R3 programme. He claimed Germans at the time of the work’s composing would have seen themselves as a target for overseas aggression.

And, of course, at the time of the premiere in 1868 Germany was still a conglomeration of different states and not yet unified. I've no problem with Sachs' concluding monologue either in the text or in the music.

[bluestateprommer]

Finally caught up with this Tristan und Isolde Prom during a free weekend spell, as I couldn't listen to it live at the time (the work thing, ya know), and ended up listening to Acts I & II one day, and returning for Act III the next day. Even through balance-adjusted R3 sound via Sounds, I can see where Ticciati's enthusiasm for conducting this opera for the first time may have run away with him, in terms of letting the orchestra swamp the singers at times. I generally grasped the text, but when the orchestra lets loose, it's a pretty close run more than once, where the voices blend into the orchestra (the LPO on fantastic form, BTW, clearly relishing the moment). David Nice perhaps more graciously alluded to issues of sound balances in the hall in his review for The Arts Desk:

"....there were other problems live. Not of co-ordination - the mark of the long Glyndebourne rehearsal process with a conductor living the opera in every bar – but of balances in the hall, especially if you were sitting to the sides and voices got lost every time they turned away."

On the discussion point about King Marke's monologue, I'm with Petrushka in terms of giving the title characters a break from their Act II marathon singing, along with the dramaturgical aspects of filling in the back story in the drama. If one were somehow to remove King Marke entirely, this opera would be even more of a tenor and soprano voice-killer than it already is. Plus, Tristan and Isolde are in an other-worldly state in Act II, while King Marke (and Melot) are more in the realm of the everyday world. When they barge into Tristan and Isolde's other-world, it's meant to bring them back to earth.

With respect to Simon O'Neill conking out vocally before Act III, I wondered what the Glyndebourne schedule had been before this Prom. Here are those dates:

* 13 August
(3-day break)
* 17 August
(3-day break)
* 21 August
(2-day break)
* 24 August
(3-day break)
* 28 August

This Prom was on 31 August, which meant only a 2-day break between this Prom and the last Glyndebourne performance. In hindsight, the Glyndebourne schedulers may have unwittingly set Simon O'Neill up for a vocal fall with what looks to be potentially "tight" scheduling of a fair number of Tristan performances in such a short period.

For comparison, I found a schedule of what would have been Santa Fe Opera's 2020 Tristan und Isolde (with guess whom as Tristan, by coincidence), which obviously did not happen last summer:

* 18 July 2020
(3 day break)
* 22 July 2020
(8 day break)
* 31 July 2020
(5 day break)
* 6 August 2020
(5 day break)
* 12 August 2020
(5 day break)
* 18 August 2020

Granted, Santa Fe Opera has a partly-open-to-the-outside theater, but perhaps more importantly, is located 7000 feet above sea level. Singers have to arrive weeks early to adjust to the altitude. But the spacing between this would-be set of Tristan performances is quite the contrast with Glyndebourne.

For further comparison, the most recent Metropolitan Opera set of performance of T&I, led by SSR in 2016, had this schedule:

* 26 Sept 2016
(3 day break)
* 30 Sept 2016
(2 day break)
* 3 Oct 2016
(4 day break)
* 8 Oct 2016
(4 day break)
* 13 Oct 2016
(3 day break)
* 17 Oct 2016
(6 day break)
* 24 Oct 2016
(2 day break)
* 27 Oct 2016

If I were an opera house scheduler and cared that the tenor and the soprano would not have wrecked voices by the end of the run, I'd err on the side of longer days-off breaks between performances of Tristan. But then no one asked me .

[Petrushka]

I've just had a glance at the schedule for the Bayreuth productions of Tristan und Isolde, in particular the celebrated productions in 1952 (Karajan) and 1976 (Carlos Kleiber/Horst Stein).

1952
23/7/52
2/8/52
7/8/52
20/8/52
25/8/52

1976
30/7/76
3/8/76
11/8/76
19/8/76
23/8/76
28/8/76

There are substantial breaks here which would have allowed the respective Tristans (Ramon Vinay in 1952) and (Spas Wenkoff in 1976) time to recover. Neither singer had any other engagements in Bayreuth in those years.

One can't help but think that the Glyndebourne schedule was unfair to Simon O'Neill and, if true that the orchestra at the Prom was too loud, then the buck stops with the conductor.