‘Tristan und Isolde’ Review: At the Met Opera, Wagner’s Vast World

Director Yuval Sharon’s company debut is an imaginative, expansive production headed by two top-flight singers, Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres.

By 

Heidi Waleson

Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres. MET OPERA

New York

In his 2024 book, “A New Philosophy of Opera,” the American director Yuval Sharon offered a radical vision for an art form that is often mired in convention and conformity. He posited that opera’s magic lies in its inherent ambiguity and its true power is rebirth. It is thus fitting that his Metropolitan Opera debut production, which opened on Monday, was Wagner’s long and unwieldy “Tristan und Isolde,” which offers plenty of space for interpretation. His expansive theatrical vision embraced the outstanding work of the top-flight cast headed by Michael Spyres and Lise Davidsen in the title roles and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

It was a double story from the start. Mr. Sharon staged the orchestral prelude with Ms. Davidsen and Mr. Spyres sitting across from each other at a downstage table, their subtle gestures speaking to a fraught relationship, amplified by Ruth Hogben’s evocative live video projected on Es Devlin’s proscenium-filling set that suggested an enormous camera shutter. Their places at the table were then taken by actor/dancer doubles, and the shutter opened to reveal a tunnel floating above the stage floor, where most of the singing happened. In Act 1, the tunnel was the claustrophobic quarters of Tristan’s ship, bringing the furious Isolde from Ireland to Cornwall; in Act 2, it morphed into the magical, hermetic, nighttime world of the lovers; in Act 3, it became the space between life and death, in which the dying Tristan hallucinates.

A scene from ‘Tristan und Isolde.’ MET OPERA

Mr. Sharon maintained multiple perspectives throughout. The doubles (Tim Bendernagel and Simon Catillon as Tristan; Cecily Campbell and Caitlin Scranton as Isolde), wearing simpler versions of Clint Ramos’s medieval-style costumes for the singers—green for Isolde, blue for Tristan—seemed to be miming a more explicit contemporary version of the story while the singers gave voice to their innermost feelings above, their tunnel environment suffused in John Torres’s vibrantly hued lighting. Aided by the video and Jason H. Thompson’s projections, the two worlds coexisted, complementing each other, especially in the wrenching third act, in which the Tristan double lay dying on the table, tended by his henchman Kurwenal, while his delirious, suffering mind sang in the tunnel above. At times, the singers and doubles smoothly switched places, and when the singers appeared on the floor—as when the lovers are discovered in Act 2—it was always a shock, like an awakening from a world of dreams. 

Mr. Sharon’s theatrical world made space for the vastness of the emotional drama and thematic subtexts contained in Wagner’s music, and the orchestra and singers filled it with ease. Mr. Nézet-Séguin found the score’s oceanic qualities without wallowing in them, holding to its throughline even in the most fervid passages, and making the mood changes between the acts and within them clear. Both principal singers made their punishing roles sound easy. Mr. Spyres’s tenor has the necessary brightness and stamina along with a bel canto-style legato that made the love duet of Act 2 magical; his agony in Act 3 seemed to well up from a very deep level. Ms. Davidsen’s soprano is both beautiful and brilliantly penetrating; she can also sing softly and still be heard. Isolde is a mercurial character, and Ms. Davidsen expressed her simmering rage, her girlish flirtatiousness, and her serenity in the “Liebestod.” The acoustic properties of Ms. Devlin’s tunnel also noticeably helped with their vocal projection over the large orchestra.

Bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny was powerful as Kurwenal, his cocky sarcasm of Act 1 giving way to the caretaker’s forced optimism in Act 3. He and Brangäne (the potent mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova) struggle in vain to drag the enchanted lovers back into the real world. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green captured the anguish and humanity of the betrayed King Marke, though he was underpowered in comparison with the others. Pedro R. Díaz played the haunting English horn solos—in costume in the tunnel—embodying the lifelong mourning that torments Tristan.

Ms. Davidsen, Ekaterina Gubanova, Ryan Speedo Green, Tomasz Konieczny and Mr. Spyres. MET OPERA

Mr. Sharon’s direction wove together the different strands of the opera and the production, exploring the narrative and themes while encompassing the humanity of the characters. The doubles also provide movement and context that keep the longest musical sections from feeling static, and the sensitive use of live video, sometimes shot from overhead, keeps switching the audience’s perspective. In one especially striking video moment in Act 1, the image of the Isolde double’s knife, pointed at Tristan’s throat, was hugely enlarged and became the knife-shaped opening in which the Tristan and Isolde singers meet.

The director has said that he interprets the death wish in the opera as part of the cycle of rebirth. The production offers clues to this: In a silent interpolation, the Isolde double gives birth after Tristan dies, and Ms. Davidsen seemed to be singing her “Liebestod” to the baby. Tristan’s passage between worlds is anything but serene, and dancers, subtly choreographed by Annie-B Parson, accompany him as he hovers in the tunnel that suggests the bardo of Tibetan Buddhism. Yet Mr. Sharon has not drowned the human, emotional roots of the opera in concept. As Tristan breathed his final “Isolde,” the expression on Mr. Spyres’s face—open-eyed and naked with longing—said it all. The combination bodes well for Mr. Sharon’s Met “Ring,” scheduled to begin in the 2027-28 season. Also a good sign: The original seven-performance run of “Tristan” sold out fast, so the company added one on April 4, though without Mr. Spyres. You can catch him on the HD transmission in movie theaters on March 21.