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Covent Garden, 3pm, Tristan und Isolde, Bernard Haitink’s last performance at the Covent Garden.

Queued from 8:45 for the day tickets. this entailed getting up at 7am and catching the train in to London - easier said than done - especially when yo sleep really badly and the alarm doesn’t go off. Made it though, and did a quick head count while someone held my place for me. 58th in the queue, and there are 67 day seats.

No sign of emily and stewart. By the time they got there the queue had grown quite a bit and the people behind us were not very happy at the thought that I might be letting them into the queue, so they decided not to queue and to go and see something else instead. I felt guilty about that - sorry guys…

At 11am they opened the doors, counted off the 67 lucky people and made the rest of the queue stand against the other wall to wait for returns. At 3pm there were still some of them there. I don’t know if this is an ordinary occurrence or just because of the fact that it was Bernard Haitink’s last performance.

After I got my ticket I went to meet s&e and we sat in Leicester Square while they waited for half-tix to open. It was a beautiful sunnny day - people walking around in t-shirts and basking on the grass in the square. I was wearing a t-shirt too, and a jumper - and a jacket… Melbourne people would find it a lot easier to adjust to London, they’re already used to layering…

They couldn’t decide what to go see, so we went off to get some lunch, to the same pub that we had gone to on Friday, in soho. I had a stak and stilton pie and a pint - traditional english stodge, but just what I needed after a muesli bar for breakfast.

We went back to Leicester Square and they decided to go to Shockheaded Peter - the Tiger Lillies aren’t the band any more but I’m sure its still great.

It was now about 2:30 so I caught the tube back to Covent Garden and joined the crowds milling around in the foyer. Bought a program (5 pounds for a good hefty tome - australian ones are so overpriced) and went in to sit down.

My seat was stage left about 15m from the front of the stage at the same level. Slightly obstructerd view and I could only just read the surtitles on the nearest tv screen by craning a bit. But I was right level with the front of the orchestra and BH. The auditorium has just been completely rebuilt, and the acoustics are fantastic (I’m not sure if they were enhanced at all - I don’t think so), but it still has that amazing red velvet curtain with the crowns, that lifts and separates… If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take another look at the curtain at the start of Moulin Rouge, and remember that Baz Luhrmann is one of australia’s best opera directors.

Glance at the program - steersman - ‘Grant Doyle trained at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide…’. It’s a small world.

The orchestra was great from the first chord. Shock! surprise! horror! - horns can play in tune! I don’t know how they followed BH though - maybe they had some kind of telepathic link, because it seemed to me that they played about 3/4 of a beat behind the whole time. Maybe they were making allowances for the singers. I got used to it after a while and could actually watch him.

The production is ultra minimalist - Isolde on a large red raked platform, Tristan on a large purple raked platform. As the lovers emotions move around so do the platforms, until at the end of the first act, after they have taken the love potion which they think is poison, they reach to each other across the void to embrace in death, coming closer and closer as the music orgasms around them, until a scream from Isolde’s maid the platforms are thrust apart in a blaze of white light with the entrance of the king, to whom Isolde is promised.

The singing so far has been mostly Isolde - and Lisa Gasteen - from Brisbane - is great - very strong and expressive voice, and impressive feat of stamina. Tristan is not quite as strong, and seems to be struggling to get over the orchestra.

45 minute break. They are selling ice-cream in the foyer - a special one made in a creamery in surrey exclusively for the Royal Opera house. I have one and wander down the road for a panini, watching the police setting up for the BAFTA television awards at Drury Lane around the corner.

Back to the theatre - more Wagner. Isolde waits in the dark for the King, off hunting to be far away so that she can meet with Tristan. Finally he mounts his purple slab and drifts towards her, and they sing an amazingly passionate duet until, as the orchestra orgasms again, his voice cracks - and a chill runs up my spine. He gets little rest for the rest of the act, and I can see him swallowing to try and lubricate his throat. every time he sings I am on the edge of my seat, and I can hear him marking and trying to recover from each phrase in time for the next. Near the end of the act Wagner’s pressure relents a bit and he carris it off, but I’m quite scared for him. As the King breaks in again in his customary white revealing light (there’s a great play on light and dark in the libretto - i’m sure theres a web site on it if you’re interested) and discovers the two lovers on their slabs in the most platonic form of flagrante delicto I’ve ever seen he makes the obvious response with a 15 minute aria on how upset he is that his best friend has betrayed him. Then the evil Melot stabs Tristan and the act ends very suddenly and jarringly. (Wagner’s good at this - he does exactly the same thing at the end of act ii of Sigfried - where it is even more astounding as he changes key completely just for the last chord - a fantastic effect)

Unfortunately for our tenor, the structure of the opera is broadly:
Act I - Isolde sings for 1 hour 10, they sing 10 minutes of duet
Act II - Isolde sings for 45 minutes, they T&I duet for 30 minutes, King sings for 10
Act III - Tristan sings while dying for an hour and 10, and Isolde sings for 15 at the end (she’s not fat - just big boned)

The tenor who first sang the role died 2 weeks after the first season. I thought our tenor wasn;t going to last that long. He was really dying - his voice gave way about 20 minutes in and the rest was pure fear and willpower. On some of his high notes you could hear the rasp of his throat as a sub-harmonic - really really scary - and I had tears in my eyes and my head in my hands for much of the act. Every now and then he got a 5 minute break while Kurwenal (very good by Alan Titus) sang or the shepherd played his pipe (offstage oboe - really really well played) and for a few phrases he could do it, but by the end there was nothing left and I’m sure when he died it was with relief.

Finally Isolde arrives, and faints while everyone else on the stage kills each other or drink poison, only to wake to sing her last lament for Tristan as her red slab inches its way offstage. She has a voice, thank god - and it is over.

The audience gives most of its praise and its standing ovation to BH, and he looks moved as the lilys rain down from the gods. Only 5 and a half hours after I entered the auditorium its over, and its time to walk out into the stunning purple dusk and catch the train home.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 21st, 2002 at 11:24 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.