Tristan In A Box

The Metropolitan Opera has had quite a go with this spring’s run of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The original pairing, Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt, never materialized. Heppner was forced to cancel at least four of the six performances; at this time, he is still scheduled for the final two. Mr. Heppner’s original replacement, John Mac Master, disappointed critics and audiences alike, reportedly being booed by the audience after the first performance. For the next performance, the one of March 14, the Met rounded up Gary Lehman. Apparently Mr. Lehman did well, only to lose his Isolde, Ms. Voigt, in the second act to a stomach ailment. The remainder of that performance was sung by Ms. Voigt’s replacement, Janice Baird. Mr. Lehman returned for the following performance, but an Act III stage mechanism accident dragged him on his back headfirst into the prompter’s box. Mr. Lehman was shaken, but not seriously injured, although the curtain did have to be brought down for a few minutes while everyone regained their composure and took a breath.

Last Saturday’s matinee performance, however, was seen by a few more people than fit into the Metropolitan Opera seats -- it was one of the scheduled performances broadcast in Hi-Def to movie theaters around the world. The Met announced last Wednesday that Saturday’s Tristan would be sung by American tenor Robert Dean Smith, making his Metropolitan Opera debut. Mr. Smith is one of those American singers who has chosen to build his reputation in Europe, having sung Tristan, Walther von Stolzing from Die Meistersinger, and Lohengrin at Bayreuth. For those in the broadcast audience, he seemed to be the ideal in terms of Wagnerian tenors: appearance, voice, and stamina.

Aside from Mr. Smith’s Tristan and Ms. Voigt’s Isolde, a unique and notable effect came not from the stage, but from the HD broadcast’s video director. To solve the tricky issue of tiny faces lost in the vast sea that is the abstract set in this production by Dieter Dorn and designer Jürgen Rose, director Barbara Willis Sweete judiciously used the video switcher technique of inset boxes that both isolated characters and gave a whole-stage view simultaneously. At first, the effect was disconcerting and probably uncomfortable to some viewers. But then the realization came that the isolation camera technique was giving an experience that no other audience member could possibly have. The inset boxes sized and re-sized, grouped and re-grouped, to reinforce the stage arrangement. While this technique would not be necessary, and indeed undesired, for most productions, it certainly made its mark in this broadcast of Tristan und Isolde.