[Met Tour] CID:123480



Tristan und Isolde
Boston Opera House, Boston, Massachusetts, Fri, March 25, 1938




Tristan und Isolde (260)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tristan
Lauritz Melchior

Isolde
Kirsten Flagstad

Kurwenal
Julius Huehn

Brangäne
Karin Branzell

King Marke
Emanuel List

Melot
Arnold Gabor

Sailor's Voice/Shepherd
Karl Laufkötter

Steersman
Norman Cordon


Conductor
Artur Bodanzky







Review 1:

Review of Ruth Masters in the Boston Evening American

Kirsten Flagstad Repeats Her Triumph as Isolde

The reason for the recent unprecedented popularity of "Tristan und Isolde" was again overwhelmingly apparent in the performance brought to the Boston Opera House last evening by the Metropolitan Opera Company.

The reason, of course, is Kirsten Flagstad

Certainly no one today, perhaps none of the great divas of the past, has become so thoroughly identified with Wagner's heroine. As Brünnhilde, Sieglinde, Elsa she is called monumental by conductors, heroic by critics - the public vying with both in unpublished eulogies. For many her debut with the Metropolitan three years ago is the only thing that has happened since Toscanini.

That she is best loved as Isolde has something to do with the music drama itself.

Wagner's philosophy of transfiguration through love is here employed to work a veritable miracle on the somewhat obscurely involved legend, transforming the clandestine romance of the medieval characters into a symbol of all that is imperishable in human love. The musical setting, of course, resolves itself into some of the most poignantly impassioned music ever written.

It is Flagstad's achievement that in the role she is not singer, actress, diva. She is Isolde. The simple dignity and sustained poise with which she moves through the part are Isolde's own. And in the glorious voice which, soaring above the fabulous climaxes or penetrating its rich web of sound, threads each sequence into a perfect whole.

Never does she falter, never does she become more or less than Isolde. She, who is so heroic as Brünnhilde is not goddess here but the very essence of earthly love, transcendently eloquent.

Melchior's Tristan necessarily has much to recommend it. His performance last evening lacked the intensity that he usually brings to the portrayal of the role.

His voice remains one of the remarkable tenors of the Metropolitan has had in recent years, and his vast experience enables him to make the most effective use of it.

Karin Branzell as Brängene and Julius Huehn contributed their usual sympathetic support.

The orchestra was inclined to waver in atmospheric images, to shout without sonority in climaxes.

The scenery for "Tristan" does not improve with age, and it was so poor in the first place it simply does not bear talking about anymore.



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