Two Tristans in one week may sound penitential, but some of us were secretly delighted at the prospect. Addictions need feeding and Wagner never comes in quick fixes. In any case, ENO's revival of David Alden's 1996 staging provided a sharp and rewarding contrast to the stunning new Glyndebourne production.
Making his ENO debut, the Austrian conductor Dietfried Bernet returned to a more traditional approach, giving emphasis to the voices and restoring the orchestra to a more unified, warm glow rather than the brightly lit, crystalline sounds achieved at Glyndebourne.
Speeds were spacious, teetering on slow, but Bernet is expert at shaping each phrase and allowing maximum growth towards each musical climax. In Susan Bullock and David Rendall he had an outstanding pair of lovers well able to release their considerable vocal and emotional reserves as the music demanded. Matthew Best as King Marke, Jonathan Summers as Kurwenal and Jane Irwin a compelling Brangˆne gave honourable support.
Bullock has sung the role in a concert version at Opera North. Given the chance of a full staging, she wasted no opportunity to show the Irish princess in all her cussed variety: angry, sardonic, petulant and eventually punch-drunk with obsessive love. She has natural vocal authority, immense colour and range and a rare power to move, which, despite a shaky start, she proved overwhelmingly in her farewell (the Liebestod).
Rendall, new to the role, was the surprise of the evening. He combined an almost Italianate grace of line with Wagnerian weight and force. Even the demands of Act III, when Tristan pronounces at anguished length on his fate, appeared not to daunt him. He and Bullock made every word of Andrew Porter's seasoned translation audible and the drama vivid and intense as a result.
ENO should scrap all daft talk of surtitles and ask why this worked so resoundingly where other productions fail. Despite an excess of weird, sub-erotic stage business, Alden's production is searching and strong on neurotic detail. Ian MacNeil's handsome, distressed wall (ingeniously lit by Wolfgang Gˆbbel) is, well, a handsome, distressed wall.
Until 8 June. Box office: 020 7632 8300.
Tristan und Isolde
