Past Production Reviews
3Seeing Isolde sing her Verklärung (Transfiguration – ‘Mild und leise’) standing, centre stage and spotlit, was certainly in line with the production’s aesthetic: it is, of course, all her world then, as the human world recedes, and she ecstatically misreads Tristan’s post-mortem muscle stiffening as a ‘laugh’ (‘… wie er lächelt’). Tristan found himself recumbent for much of the final act on what looked like sheepskin until the delirium became too much for stasis. Memorable takes, both.
Along with that colour, soul and unflagging energy, he knows how to manipulate Wagner’s immense canvas, when to drive the music on through high moments and manage gradual transitions, while his heart-warming rapport with the London Philharmonic bodes well for the future.
Luxury casting abounds as Thomas Allen returns as the harassed Music Master, Nikolay Borchev impresses as a priapic Harlequin and Karen Cargill's Exocet mezzo brings her brilliantly sung Dryad to the fore. Another mezzo, Ruxandra Donose, is dynamic as the hapless Composer. The high-lying passages may challenge her (like so many of Strauss's female roles it was intended for a soprano) but she sings her concentrated set pieces with idiomatic gusto and acts with practised ease as the proud creative artist who's beset by (understandable) mood swings. Jane Archibald has performed the flirtatious coloratura clown Zerbinetta far and wide, and her assurance in the character's big solo scena is now breathtaking. Show-stopping, jaw-dropping, the casual precision of Archibald's stratospheric brilliance has to be heard to be believed. All of these seemingly disparate parts are wrought into a seamless whole by the conducting of Lothar Koenigs in a distinguished Royal Opera debut. How sensitively he gauges the balance of Strauss's orchestrations! They're unusually light in this opera, but he supports the voices subtly: airy for Zerbinetta, full-blooded under Mattila's dramatic soprano and Smith's Heldentenor in the expansive, neo-Wagnerian finale. Five-star shows are hard to define - they're not necessarily about perfection - but you know when you've seen one. This is a shoo-in.
