Bayreuth's 'Tristan' or Love in the GDR

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

BAYREUTH, Germany (AFP) — Christoph Marthaler's production of "Tristan and Isolde", revived at this year's Bayreuth Festival for its fourth run on Saturday night, certainly puts the "triste" back into "Tristan".

There's no overwhelming passion or no electrifying eroticism. The stage, by Anna Viebrock, is all drab browns and yellows typical of the former communist East Germany or German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The star-crossed lovers never kiss, in fact barely touch throughout the six-hour evening, and the climax of their passionate night-time rendezvous in Act II is when Isolde unbuttons her nylon blouse and Tristan loosens his tie.

The secondary characters mill vacantly around, locked away in their own worlds, staring near-autistically at bare walls....