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Boston Globe, APRIL 06, 2018 |
By Jeremy Eichler |
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Wagner: Konzert, Boston, 5. April 2018 (Tristan, 2. Akt) |
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The BSO offers Wagner’s ‘shivery and sweet infinity’
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It’s a truism that all of Wagner’s operas tend to elicit strong responses,
pro or contra, but “Tristan und Isolde” seems to possess a proprietary
voltage, a way of flooding the circuit boards — be they musical, sensual,
philosophical, or spiritual — with an electricity all its own. And,
especially closer to its own day, listeners have responded with commensurate
zing.
“The most repulsive thing I ever saw or heard in my life” —
was the crisp opinion of Clara Schumann. “A deity draped in the invisible
folds of musical texture,” opined Stéphane Mallarmé. And “to this day,”
confessed Nietzsche, “I am still looking for a work of equally dangerous
fascination, of an equally shivery and sweet infinity, as ‘Tristan.’ ”
On Thursday night in a packed Symphony Hall, Andris Nelsons and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra offered up a generous serving of that sweet
infinity. More precisely, they played Act II of “Tristan,” in a vividly
energized account, the first of two keenly anticipated local performances.
Over the years Wagner has been a calling card for Nelsons, and not only
in staged productions at Covent Garden and Bayreuth. During his tenure
leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Nelsons led concert
performances of “Lohengrin,” “Tristan und Isolde, “The Flying Dutchman,” and
“Parsifal.”
Surprisingly, it’s taken a while for the Nelsons/BSO
Wagner tap to fully open, but last summer Tanglewood audiences were treated
to a concert performance of “Das Rheingold” with a cast that featured
Stephanie Blythe. This week’s star power comes courtesy of the renowned
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who is singing his first Tristan, opposite the
Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund, also making her role debut.
The
opera’s second act opens with the lovers’ rendezvous plan in motion. King
Marke, whom Isolde is to marry, has been drawn away on a hunting expedition
and the Irish princess, together with her maid Brangäne, restlessly awaits
Tristan’s arrival, which in turn ushers in the spiraling ecstasies of their
famous Liebesnacht duet. At the end of the act, Marke returns to catch the
lovers in flagrante and decries Tristan’s betrayal in his own moving
monologue.
In general, the best opera-in-concert performances can
rival the frisson of a thrilling stage spectacle, as evidenced by the BSO’s
extraordinary 2015 account of Strauss’s “Elektra,” with Christine Goerke in
the title role. Thursday’s “Tristan” did not seem to strive for, nor did it
reach, that level of theatrical immediacy. Standing behind music stands on
opposite sides of the podium, Kaufmann and Nylund sang their impassioned
duet while facing the audience oratorio-style, and both of them relied
heavily on their vocal scores.
Within that scope Kaufmann delivered,
despite a few less steady moments. Certainly when he telegraphed Tristan’s
ardor with ringing tenorial power, or when he sang of night’s gentle charms
with beautifully shaded tones that somehow combined tenderness and
intensity, you sensed the winning Tristan he could eventually become.
Nylund, who is also still finding her way into this daunting role, sang
honorably and at her best moments, registered her character’s impatient
ecstasies with bright vocal radiance.
The German bass Georg
Zeppenfeld made a particularly compelling King Marke. Having sung this role
at Bayreuth, and performing Thursday without a vocal score, he embodied
Marke to an extent that he seemed almost out of place in this concert
reading, delivering his monologue (“Tatest Du’s wirklich?”) with a
dimensionality and pathos all its own. Among the smaller roles, Mihoko
Fujimura was also a standout as Brangäne, singing with tonal focus and
palpable dramatic commitment.
During the yearning-filled Liebesnacht,
the river of sensuality in this score surges over the — let’s be honest —
rather shallow banks of the opera’s text. Feeding its raptures cyclically,
as both source and destination, is Wagner’s orchestra in all its
hallucinogenic splendor. The BSO played superbly for Nelsons, despite some
moments in Thursday’s performance when brisk tempos threatened to blur some
of the opera’s brilliant instrumental detail. Also worth noting was the
evening’s curtain-raiser: a spacious and coolly transparent account of
Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll.”
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