Spaced-Out Tristan

By * Robert T. Jones

Wagner has not fared well at the Metropolitan Opera during the 21-year regime of Rudolf Bing. No fault of Bing's: except for the shining example of Soprano Birgit Nilsson, most singers during that period barely coped with Wagner's long, heroic, leading roles. On the whole, it was left to stage directors and designers to make up in looks what was missing in sound, usually with limited success.

The latest to try. Director August Everding and Designer Giinther Schneider-Siemssen, are no exception. Their new Tristan und Isolde, which opened at the Met last week, undoubtedly will provoke arguments for as long as the production runs. To some, it may be a bold realization of the poetry in Wagner's libretto. To others, it will seem more like the further adventures of Mary Poppins, German style.

Delicatessen Window. Everding has mounted one of those productions in which the actors don't act but the scenery does. Wagner's two lovers live in an emotional realm of their own, encountering calamity only when they have to reconcile ecstasy with reality. Everding has them floating off into their own dreamworld during passionate scenes, returning to earth when other people are around. In a starkly symbolic setting where nothing is real, it might have worked. But in this production, both world and dreamworld look equally realistic. Nothing fuses.

Tristan (Jess Thomas) and Isolde (Birgit Nilsson) down their love potion on the deck of a palpably realistic ship. Suddenly they are obscured by swirling clouds, as if seen through a delicatessen window on a cold day. Later, in a dense, lushly tropical garden, they embrace, then shoot skyward via an elevator. They float among color-slide-projected stars, perch on the solid-looking edge of a planet examining a literal representation of the sun's corona, finally end their galactic tour by strolling across what seems to be an asteroid before ending up again in their dank garden.

Hallmark Aids. Throughout, Everding has succeeded in projecting the lovers' desire for eternal night and their equation of day with destructive reality. Tristan dies in a bleak courtyard as the sun burns harshly through a sea mist. But Isolde's Liebestod brings on more aeronautics. Arms outstretched, she again appears in the firmament, looking for all the world like a "Peace on Earth" Christmas card.

Conductor Erich Leinsdorf, returning to the Met after a ten-year absence, leads a performance that surges excitingly, especially when Soprano Nilsson pours forth oceans of brilliant sound. Tenor Thomas does not give the world the Tristan that it has lacked since Lauritz Melchior retired in 1950. He looks romantic, but is overwhelmed by Wagner's demands. Still, thanks to Leinsdorf and the unique Nilsson, there are moments when one can forget that this new Tristan looks like an astronomy lecture with visual aids from Hallmark.

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