Tristan at the Met; the play and the chord
Charles Zigmund
matinee and would like to review it briefly and then share some
further thoughts on the play and the music. First, as to the
production itself, the singing, conducting and playing seemed to me
magnificent. I am still a relative novice and so write about the
performances with some hesitation. Ben Heppner did a fine job as
Tristan and sang passionately, but his voice seems to me to be a
little thin, not full and melodious enough for the role or for
heldentenorship in general. I had no such reservations about Jane
Eaglen. Her voice was so full and beautiful throughout, and her acting
so good, that her bulk (she must weigh between 300 and 400 pounds) did
much less harm to the suspension of belief needed to imagine her as a
young lover than I'd expected. The conducting of James Levine, though
a little slow as usual for his Wagner, and the playing of the
orchestra, were superb. The gorgeous harmonies of this special music
resonated through the hall as beautifully as one could wish.
My prior experiences at the Met last year had been with more or less
traditional stagings. Tristan was my first in-person experience of a
modern abstract set, and this aspect of the production was simply
awful. Being a painter and loving much of modern art and architecture
(and disliking most of the rest), I have no predisposition against
such a concept, but the idea and execution here were execrable.
Imagine a large four-sided pyramid tipped over on its side. You are
looking into it through the bottom which has been removed. You thus
see four triangles whose sides form the floor, two walls and ceiling
of the set, coming together at the apex of the pyramid which is like a
vanishing point in the distance. If the two side panels are colored
gray, and the floor black, and the ceiling white, you have a schematic
representation of a landscape or seascape. This is what served for
the entire opera, with a few gimcrack properties thrown in to
differentiate land from sea and boat. For example, in the night scene
in Act II were added one lonely leafed branch each projecting in from
left and right to suggest a garden. Looking at the pointed apex of
the pyramid, where the eye naturally kept landing, for over four hours
was torturous and brought on a feeling of claustrophobia. Furthermore,
the designer evidently decided to express the negativity of daytime
which Wagner emphasizes by providing a very brightly lit sky triangle.
The white of this sky was so glaringly bright that the singers were
often silhouetted against it as black shadows and the titles on the
back of the seat in front of me were unreadable, because the eyes had
to keep dilating and undilating to make the transition. The
painfulness of continually dilating and undilating the eyes induced me
to give up on the titles after a while, not a great handicap because I
know the plot well. But the physical pain of looking at the set rarely
ceased, except during the night scene when the set turned mercifully
blue. (One inspired touch in this disaster was when the love potion
was drunk in Act I and the triangles turned pink and then red to
express the rush of realization of love, before turning back to white
and gray.) All in all, the set was obtrusive, pretentious,
claustrophobic and physically painful. A painting teacher of mine used
to say that one could paint a dull day but the painting should not be
dull. Here, the designer mistook the expression of pain which is
transmuted in Wagner's hands into sublime beauty, for the necessity to
wreak both physical and psychological pain on the audience.
Leaving aside the set, the performance provided what I had experienced
last year at the Met with Parsifal: an understanding of the opera on a
deeper level. Having thought the plot mawkish and the need for Tristan
to die simply a deux-from-the-machine kind of excuse for a tragic
ending, I now absorbed the story emotionally and even shed a few tears
during the final transfiguration scene (which was superbly sung and
acted by Eaglen). I understood what I had briefly glimpsed at times
in the past and then forgotten, that the art of opera is more than the
sum of its parts and cannot be truly grasped without being there in
person. The plots of many operas, not just Wagner's, may be improbable
but are redeemed by the totality of the art form. I look forward
especially to seeing the Ring at the Met next spring (if I can get
tickets) for the comparable deepened understanding of the cycle.
Lastly, I understand the Tristan chord and its genesis better now. I
have been asking myself continually for over a year now, and in one
instance have asked this forum: how could Wagner, who wrote and spoke
voluminously on everything that interested him, have not commented at
all (as far as I'm aware) on the revolutionary breaking down and
recasting of Western harmony which this opera accomplished – perhaps
his most important influence on the future of art? Having experienced
the heartbreak of the work more fully for the first time, I now know
why. I remember reading of the utter incomprehension of the people who
first heard it – even Berlioz could not understand the music and
listened in vain for a resolution into a meaningful tonic key. Yet to
Wagner this was a ‘practical' and concise opera which would earn him
a ready income – he had not the faintest inkling that people would be
mystified by the music, until he tried rehearsing it and found that
the musicians could not even make enough sense of it to play it. Why
was this?
Because the composer was simply casting in music the frustration of
his quest for love, not (in his mind) opening up new formal vistas.
The Tristan chord powerfully expresses beauty, sensual and romantic
love, and yearning and unfulfillment, all at once, in the haunting
arrangement of its notes. To Wagner this was giving necessary
expression to his feelings, not opening a new chapter in music
history. Likewise the refusal to come to rest in a tonic resolution
was not to him an opening up of polytonality or atonality, but again a
way to express his continuing inability to find love. He was thus
dumbfounded when his music could not be understood, at least at first.
His barely conscious creation of modern music reminds me strongly of
his contemporary Cezanne, who opened the way to cubism and modern
painting merely as a byproduct of his search for a better way of
expressing what he saw when he looked at nature. In one case, the
abandonment of traditional harmony; in the other, the abandonment of
traditional perspective; both accomplished almost unconsciously by
their creators.
Steppenwolf
> expression to his feelings, not opening a new chapter in music
> history. Likewise the refusal to come to rest in a tonic resolution
> was not to him an opening up of polytonality or atonality, but again a
> way to express his continuing inability to find love. He was thus
> dumbfounded when his music could not be understood, at least at first.
> His barely conscious creation of modern music reminds me strongly of
> his contemporary Cezanne, who opened the way to cubism and modern
> painting merely as a byproduct of his search for a better way of
> expressing what he saw when he looked at nature. In one case, the
> abandonment of traditional harmony; in the other, the abandonment of
> traditional perspective; both accomplished almost unconsciously by
> their creators.
I think your view partly true, however I do believe Wagner was aware
that the opera was something very different from anything written
before and would have an unprecedented impact on those who heard it.
There is a quote I read once; the Master said "I need to perform a
miracle in order to get the world to believe in me", uttered in his
frustration at his genius passing unrecognised. And what a miracle it
was! This to me suggests that he was aware that Tristan would be quite
new and revolutionary. Secondly, he also warned, in a letter to a
friend, that he feared that those not ready to hear it may be driven
mad! So psychologically intense is the music, even psychologically
disturbed. And in fact, the first conductor hired to perform the
premiere suffered a nervous breakdown during the rehersals and had to
institutionalised! Tristan actually sent him insane! There are stories
of other musicians at the time having to leave the theatre during mid
performance in tears, quite overcome with emotion. (My favourite story
is the one of the pious priest who, attending the premiere, jumped up
at the beginning of the powerfully erotic music in the Act II love
duet, crossed himself, then ran for the exit in horror!)
So I agree that Wagner was not anticipating a-tonalism or
impressionism in writing the work, but I do think he was aware he was
doing something quite revolutionary and radical.
Canyon Rick
in the physical act of making love when his agent phoned him.
After hanging up the phone, he tells the woman, "Dressed. We must get
dressed. I have to sing Tristan in 3 months."
RICK
Charles Zigmund
finally rang a bell in my mind and I put two and two together (to use
two cliches at once).
I remembered an article in the NY Times several months ago about a Met
donor who had stipulated her money be used for traditional productions
only. Her estate is now trying to recover her donation because it was
used for a modernistic production. Could this be the Tristan I saw?
Sure enough:
July 24, 2003, Thursday
METROPOLITAN DESK
Donor's Estate Sues Metropolitan Opera
By ROBIN POGREBIN (NYT) 846 words
Representatives of a Texas oil heiress regarded as the Metropolitan
Opera's greatest individual donor are suing the Met to recover
millions of dollars that they say the opera house used against the
woman's artistic wishes.
The heiress, Sybil B. Harrington, who died in 1998, had specified that
her money be used to underwrite traditional productions of standard
operatic fare. But a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Amarillo, Tex.,
accuses the Metropolitan of misusing $5 million she gave when it
televised a nontraditional production of Wagner's ''Tristan und
Isolde'' in 2001.
The lawsuit also accuses the Met of diverting $34 million of Mrs.
Harrington's money to cover costs that had nothing to do with the
production of traditional operas.
''The Met's failure to utilize funds in accordance with Mrs.
Harrington's wishes is not inadvertent or even negligent, but is the
result of a willful and calculated intent to disregard and evade Mrs.
Harrington's wishes,'' the lawsuit says.
In response, Joseph Volpe, general manager of the Met, said in an
interview yesterday: ''The charges are untrue and we will show them to
be untrue in court. Sybil Harrington was a beloved member of the Met
family and we would never do anything to dishonor her wishes or her
legacy.''
Between 1978 until her death at 89 in 1998, Mrs. Harrington gave the
Met more than $27 million, prompting the opera house to name its hall
after her. In a 1987 agreement, Mrs. Harrington specified that her
money be used to underwrite ''at least one new production each
Metropolitan Opera season by composers such as Verdi, Puccini, Bizet,
Wagner, Strauss and others whose works have been the core of the
repertory of the Metropolitan Opera during its first century, with
each such new production to be staged and performed in a traditional
manner that is generally faithful to the intentions of the composer
and the librettist.''
A year after her death, the estate donated $6 million to the opera
company, $1 million of which was designated for the Met's Young Artist
Development Program. The agreement stipulated that the remainder was
to be used ''exclusively for the televising of traditional/grand opera
productions of the Metropolitan Opera and for no other purposes'' and
that ''these traditional/grand opera productions shall be set in a
place and time and staged as the composer placed it.''
George F. Carpinello, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said some of the
money was used for the televised production of ''Tristan'' in 2001;
the opera was presented onstage in 1999 and directed by Dieter Dorn.
In his 1999 review in The New York Times, Bernard Holland praised the
singing and described the production's new look. ''Triangular planes
converge at a point at the back of Jurgen Rose's set and spread upward
and outward to the audience,'' he wrote.
In the complaint, the Amarillo Area Foundation, the organization
appointed by Mrs. Harrington's trustees to oversee the Met's
compliance with her bequests, and Laurie McWeeney, Mrs. Harrington's
personal representative, are seeking the return of the $5 million.
The lawsuit, filed in Texas State Court in Amarillo, is also demanding
an accounting of the current amount in the Sybil B. Harrington
Endowment fund, which is controlled by the opera. The Met says the
value of the fund is slightly more than $28 million. The Harrington
trust asserts that the fund's market value as of Aug. 31, 2002, was
more than $62 million. The estate says it believes the Met has spent
the difference on expenses of its own choosing and wants the money
restored.
The lawsuit was prompted by a letter on Sept. 17, 2002, from Eric
Bernard, the endowment campaign director at the Met, to Harry M.
Ostrander, one of the Harrington trustees. In the letter, Mr. Bernard
requested permission to use Harrington funds for a telecast of
Beethoven's ''Fidelio,'' citing the success of the Harrington-financed
''Tristan'' telecast.
''While not a traditional staging of the opera,'' the letter said,
''it was a traditional interpretation and the case was made to the
Trust that support of this telecast was in keeping with the wishes of
Mrs. Harrington and the stipulation of her estate. We are grateful
that the Trustees understood the importance of the 'Tristan' telecast
and agreed to its funding.''
Mr. Carpinello said the trustees had never agreed to the telecast and
''were very, very upset'' to learn that her funds had been used for
it.
The Met and the Harrington estate have had a history of disputes,
prompting Mr. Volpe to say of Mrs. Harrington in a 2000 interview:
''Sybil would say: 'I'll give my money if you hire this director or
that director. I won't give you my money if you hire so-and-so.' ''
Yesterday, Mr. Volpe declined to address the specific charges in the
complaint. ''We're confident that, at the end of this affair, the name
of the Metropolitan Opera will remain unsullied,'' he said.
cha...@verizon.net (Charles Zigmund) wrote in message news:<4684c499.03101...@posting.google.com>...
> I saw Tristan und Isolde at the Met in New York at last Saturday's
> matinee...My prior experiences at the Met last year had been with...
> wreak both physical and psychological pain on the audience....
>
Canyon Rick
> donor who had stipulated her money be used for traditional productions
> only. Her estate is now trying to recover her donation because it was
> used for a modernistic production. Could this be the Tristan I saw?
> Sure enough:
I think it was on Parterre Box that I read the following comment:
"They had a fat tenor and a fat soprano. What could be more traditional than that?"
RICK
Jim Dunphy
"Steppenwolf" <bodhi_dh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:200d6cc5.03101...@posting.google.com...
[snip]
> > Secondly, he also warned, in a letter to a
> friend, that he feared that those not ready to hear it may be driven
> mad! So psychologically intense is the music, even psychologically
> disturbed. And in fact, the first conductor hired to perform the
> premiere suffered a nervous breakdown during the rehersals and had to
> institutionalised! Tristan actually sent him insane!
Was not von Bulow the conductor of the premier of Tristan? I never heard
that he went insane. Rather, he had a brilliant career as conductor and
pianist long after the Tristan premier. He lost his wife to Wagner of
course, and felt that he could not intend the premier of the Ring in 1876;
this was probably depressing and frustrating for him.
Jim Dunphy
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Jim Dunphy" <jim...@wirefire.com> contains these words:
> [snip]
Indeed, though how deep it went is debatable. Cosima was considered by
her parents the unattractive and problematic daughter, with the added
stigma of illegitimacy, and she had been largely "married off" to the
convenient, equally uninspiring but promising von B. It seems to have
been rather an artificial relationship ripe for being broken up by a
genuine attraction.
Cheers,
Mike