Wagner - Tristan und Isolde | 
 enlarge | Director: Jean-pierre Ponnelle
Actors: Daniel Barenboim, Johanna Meier, Rene Kollo, Matti Salminen, Hanna Schwarz
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.98
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 19834
Format: Classical, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Ntsc, Subtitled
Languages: German (Original Language), German (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 0
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 247 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 000916309
UPC: 044007343210
EAN: 0044007343210
ASIN: B000OONQ1W
Theatrical Release Date: 1983
Release Date: August 14, 2007
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
Did Tristan die? November 4, 2008
Flavio Jose Morsch (Brazil)
As it is very hard to match Karajan's Parsifal in music making terms,it is not easy to bypass music of Boehm/Nilsson/Windgassen Tristan dated 1966.In this wonderful DVD we have an excellent orchestra by Baremboim with a wet creamy grandeur which he does not acchieve for instance in Bruckner.Of course J.Meier is not B.Nilsson,but she works. And R. Kollo is also well placed,without his unpleasent trebles,since Tristan is not exactly bel canto.Of course there are some boring moments at Act 3,due to Wagners prolixity ,typical of a time when idle aristocracy could spend seven hours inside Bayreuth Festspielhaus. May be I have a naive brain,however my eyes were not able to distinguish when or if has Tristan died in this stage. Flavio J.Morsch - Brazil
 Tristan und Isolde Lite March 10, 2008
Marc Musnick
8 out of 19 found this review helpful
Having heard and read so much praise I expected much more from the Ponnelle/Barenboim "Tristan und Isolde" from the Bayreuth Festival of 1981. For one thing, the DVD's video quality is extremely disappointing. Darkness is extremely grainy. Even bleeding most of the color out the video, the quality is that of early VHS which is not good.
Ponnelle's direction and designs are overly quirky and the sets are extremely ugly looking. The opening scene with Isolde on the floor with a cape spreading out covering most of the stage and wearing a ridiculous looking crown (which she rips up after the Narration and Curse) set the tone for most of the balance of the performance, which is a series of misfires better known as opera singers behaving badly. Isolde running about the stage at the beginning of act two in a state of pre-orgasmic ecstasy eventually hitting the ground grinding her body into the ground and simulating having Tristan on top of her is just so silly looking, I couldn't wait for it to pass. Tristan and Isolde looking lovingly at their image in an onstage pond during the Liebestnach was annoying in its reference to their narcissism sapping most of the erotic nature of the duet. I did like Ponnelle's revisionist ending having Isolde disappearing following the Liebestod and after a blackout before the final tableaux. Tristan imagined her return. The lights come up again with Kurvenal holding Tristan's corpse creating a truly heart wrenching scene. The only emotional moment in over four hours. No this is not what Wagner had wanted but after reading Ernest Newman's analysis of the opera, where he goes into great detail about the miserable life Tristan had lead, it made sense.
I never understood what gave Johanna Meier the impression that she was a dramatic soprano. She was a lovely Mozart and Strauss specialist during her City Opera days, with a voice more suited for Eva and Elsa, here she's swamped for the most part by Isolde's music. She does act the role well but she's around fifty percent deficient in vocal heft. This was the first time I saw Rene Kollo in action and I was less impressed than I thought I would be. Also with a modest voice, he more or less makes up with acting ability what he can't make up in volume. He plays Tristan as a manic depressive. Hanna Schwarz is also small scaled as Braganne. Hermann Becht, who I happen to like very much, was excellent as Kurwenal but the real "Wagnarian" sound was only delivered by Matti Salminen, here in his prime and wonderful as Marke.
Barenboim's conducting strays to the bombastic side easily swallowing up Meier and Kollo especially in the first portion of the love duet. But there's drive and tension throughout his reading.
This is not a performance I can see myself going back to often and it may end up on eBay sooner than later. But I will give it at least one more try, now that I know what to expect and what not to expect.
 An inspired production February 13, 2008
George Thanos Assimakis (Athens, Greece)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is indeed a very satisfying performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It is a performance filmed on the stage of Bayreuth, but without the audience, in order to give the camera a greater freedom of movement. The staging of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, shows you clearly what a good director could achieve, as opposed to the intolerable nonsense one has so often to put up with some modern productions.
The prelude depicts a misty shore with a calm sea and some rocks in the water. Mist comes and goes with the music. The picture is almost black and white, until the sun rises and lifts part of the mist to leave us somewhere in the middle of the sea. One may presume the Irish Sea.
In Act I this mist disappears and we are shown something that resembles a ship but looks more like an island, with a cave and a tree up front. Isolde wears an enormous dress, which almost traps her in and she has to set herself free.
In Act II we are shown an enormous tree, under which all the action takes place. The tree is lit up differently according to the mood of the Opera and of course there is night to begin with and daylight at the end. There is a wonderful meadow with a spring in front of the tree, which adds to the poetry of the setting.
In Act III, we have another tree, which is thunderstruck and serves at the centre point of the stage. Everything is as described by Wagner until Isolde's ship arrives. Then you realise that this has not really happened and it is Tristan who in his delirium imagines it all. He watches all the proceedings until Isolde's Liebestod when at the end her image fades away and he dies on the last note of the Opera.
As to the principals now, Daniel Barenboim conducts the Bayreuth Orchestra very elegantly with a lot of emotion and drama. Johanna Meier sings well and acts reasonably well as Isolde. Her voice is not of the calibre of past great Wagnerian sopranos like Flagstad or Nilsson or even more recently Polaski, but one cannot complain. Rene Kollo as Tristan appears with a face indifferent to the happenings in the Opera. His acting on the whole is on the poor side but his voice is certainly adequate. Hanna Schwarz as Brangane is wonderful as usual, both to listen and to watch. The rest are good with Matti Salminen as King Marke vocally towering above the others.
The image quality is good for the 80's but perhaps for a filmed performance one might have expected something better. The sound is very good.
Of the existing productions of Tristan und Isolde on DVD you will be hard pressed to find a better one. The Bohm DVD with Nilsson and Wingassen may sound more promising, but its image quality s terrible. As to the modern productions, if you want to see anything resembling the story that Wagner presented, then forget it!
Wagner - Tristan und IsoldeWagner - Tristan und Isolde
 Small-scaled in several ways February 2, 2008
D. Vierheller (Los Angeles, CA United States)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Johanna Meier's Isolde brings to mind the famous story of Melba's Brunnhilde, her lovely sound inaudible beyond the front rows. Meier's sound is probably less lovely and more audible than Melba's. Hers is a warm, slightly fluttery, lyric voice. She sings accurately and with appealing legato. But she's a fragile waif against a surging orchestra, incapable of showing Isolde's pride, anger, passion, ecstasy. Rene Kollo is more convincing as Tristan. He doesn't sound heroic. But Tristan's not that heroic a character, especially in this production where he's doom-laden from the start. Meier and Kollo both look good, if somewhat haunted.
The production isn't one of those ingenious resettings. I often like them if they only change the look and preserve the sense. This one retains Wagner's settings, less the castle in Brittany. But it perversely alters the sense at the end. Tristan lives on beyond his death in the stage directions. He has to live so that he can dream Isolde's return and love-death. Ponnelle also used a dream gimmick in his "Dutchman". There it merely framed the story, yet it remained the "Dutchman" story. Here the dream changes the story. This "Tristan" isn't about two souls love-fused so that neither can survive the other's extinction. It's about a melancholy romantic who dreams of his lover as he expires alone.
Excellent Singing but staging is less interesting January 31, 2008
A. BOSS (Mountainside, NJ United States)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is one of those productions that might be better without the video. Although I find no fault with the singing and conducting, the staging and scenery seem to be more about expressing the director's ego than about the opera.
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