FROM AROUND THE WORLD: AMSTERDAM.(Review)

A significant, recurring feature in productions by German director Alfred Kirchner is the lack, or at least the avoidance, of emotions. This was evident in two earlier productions for Netherlands Opera. A cynical Don Giovanni was saved by the sets and by Kirchner's storytelling ability, but his distant, unemotional La Traviata concerned itself more with the exploitation of love by modern society than with the feelings of two individuals.

Kirchner's new Tristan und Isolde combined these elements. The sets, by young German designer Annette Murschetz, may not have been to everyone's taste, but they were certainly a work of art, with beautiful lines and a different atmospheric character for every act. Act I showed the deck of a rusty old cargo ship, Act II seemed to take place in a modern rooftop garden, and in Act III we saw the empty rooms of Tristan's house on a sloping cliff. In Kirchner's staging, however, these sets gave more depth to Wagner's drama than did the interaction of the soloists.

In the beginning Isolde seemed more involved with herself than with Tristan, and the staging of the love duet, on a square of artificial grass, lacked any suggestion of the deeper feelings expressed in the music. Emotionally, the love duet was surpassed by Marke's monologue, which the impressive Robert Lloyd delivered intensely, even if his voice seems to have lost some of its former power.

In Act III, the drama really took shape, although one questioned the last scene. Isolde made a marvelous picture, popping up in an open window, like a statue in a niche of an Italian palace, beautifully lit by the last rays of the sun. Yet at the same moment it seemed as if she suddenly lost all interest in the wounded Tristan, who had to use his last strength to reach her. Such an Isolde does not die a Liebestod; she tells her friends about her dead lover, and life goes on. Indeed, after the suicide of the loyal Kurwenal (sung movingly and with firm voice by Alan Held), Isolde showed no inclination to follow her lover to the land "where no sun shines." On the contrary: looking at ...