Tristan und Isolde in Hobart.

The local paper on Friday

It is not so often that an audience rises as one to cheer and applaud at the end of a concert, but in Hobart this evening it was as if the crowd was a single organism. We had just heard a once-in-a-lifetime concert performance of Tristan und Isolde with the remarkable TSO under the baton of Maestro Marko Letonja. Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton came to Tasmania from New York where they have been singing Tristan and Isolde at the Met and were joined by Slovenian Monika Bohinec who is currently with the Vienna State Opera. I don't know the name of the horn player who played the extraordinary part for English horn but she was as remarkable as the singers. Letonja slipped into the back of the orchestra to give her the bottle of wine he had been presented with, by way of thanks.

Wagner fans knew this would be no ordinary concert and members of various Wagner societies flew in to Tasmania from all over the country to hear it. It was definitely worth their while.

Audience stands as one ...

Sydney Symphony's Tristan and Isolde

After a major Wagner drought, all the antipodean Wagner riches came at once this year.  The wonderful NZSO Wagner Gala conducted by Pietari Inkinen and with soloists Christine Goerke and Simon O'Neill was sung in Wellington, Chistchurch and Auckland last week, the Auckland performance on Saturday coinciding with the first of two concert performances of Tristan and Isolde by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Tristan and Isolde was the first live performance in Sydney of  a major Wagner work since 2003! We Wagnerians have been dying of Wagner-thirst.

Smoke and mirrors: giant sail in the Sydney Opera House auditorium
onto which images were projected during Tristan and Isolde

The SSO played wonderfully well under David Robertson. The singers were placed behind the orchestra which could have been a problem in a hall with such dodgy acoustics, but they were voices of caliber and all of them could be heard clearly through the hall. At half time I was amused to hear a young actor/singer talking about the amplification of the singing and saying he could hear the singers well from the back of the hall.  He was astonished to be told that opera singers are not amplified.

The standout singers for me were John Relyea as King Marke and Katarina Karneus as Brangane. Both have voices worth traveling to hear. I hope they get another opportunity to sing Wagner in Sydney and that we don't have to wait another twelve years before we hear them again.

(Review of the SSO Tristan and Isolde)
(Review of the NZSO Wagner Gala)

Darcy and Tristan

I am watching the BBC version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice on DVD and reading the book at the same time - or actually after each episode. I find it best to see an episode before reading it as then I enjoy it without fretting that the nuances are being lost.  When I read the episode after seeing it, I enjoy all the parts have been left out of the film while admiring the inventiveness of the film makers in being able to include so much.

Today I discovered a very clever auditory device used in the DVD that of course cannot be in the book. At the end of the penultimate episode, as Elizabeth finally realises she loves Darcy while at the same time recognising that current circumstances make it unlikely that his previous avowal of love will ever be repeated, we see Darcy as she sees him and hear a few notes of the music from Tristan and Isolde. Just those few notes are enough to capture the yearning of the lovers. It makes you realise again just how clever Wagner was and just how much his music permeates our culture.

Elizabeth

Darcy

What Richard Wagner is to music, Jane Austin is to the English novel. Every word is irreplaceable; not one would you leave out, nor yet is there one that you would like to add. That is exactly what has been said about the notes in Wagner's Parsifal.

Darcy and Tristan: what a combination.

Art and Music

This is a painting by Rupprecht Geiger called 402/64. Geiger was one of Germany's foremost abstract artists and painted mainly in red. (His obituary in 1996 was titled 'A life for the colour red.')

I am writing an essay about 'meaningful and compelling' relationships between art and music. The painting I have chosen is 402/64. The music is Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and my essay is turning out to be much more interesting than expected .... as essays should be of course.