The Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine
Tristan: Ben Heppner, Isolde: Jane Eaglen, King Marke: René Pape, Kurwenal: Hans-Joachim Ketelsen, Brangäne: Katarina Dalayman, Melot: Brian Davis
Set and Costume Design: Jürgen Rose
Lighting Design: Max Keller
Studio: DGG B0001745-09
Length: 238 minutes

Don’t listen to this opera if you are not in the mood for longing, unrequited passion, and fitful surges of desire. You won’t make it through. But if you can suspend yearning for four hours (or two two-hour segments, as I did), you’re in for an astonishing performance. This splendid DVD is the best I have seen of Tristan und Isolde. Everything is near perfect: the minimalist stage setting, the spooky lighting, the wondrous orchestral preludes, and of course the two stars, Ben Heppner and Jane Eaglen. Do not expect rousing choruses or stirring calls to action. This opera is about one thing only: the impossibility of love in a loveless world. Every scene, every sequence, every note, contributes to this central theme, and nowhere else does Wagner express it so eloquently and consistently. Rarely does he lead us to resolution but rather toward yet another unresolved figure. Take Act 3, for example. Most of it revolves around the wounded Tristan seeking Isolde’s returni! ng ship. In one particularly discordant sequence, when he thinks he sees the ship, the music intensifies and strives toward tonic resolution, then suddenly . . . it drops in timbre and dynamic. It wasn’t the ship at all. Only an illusion.

Throughout almost four hours, Wagner reaches into his bottomless bag of devices and teases us toward resolution, only to lead us into another emotional maelstrom. The designers, Jürgen Rose and Max Keller, construct the sumptuous Act 2, perhaps Wagner’s greatest single act, in near darkness. The lovers approach fulfillment but never reach it, thwarted by the treachery of circumstance. You may not leave this opera humming its tunes, but you will never forget those final chords of resolution, Wagner’s Liebestod to imperfect love.

–Peter Bates