'Tristan and Isolde' at the Bayreuth Festival

A princess is abducted. Against her will, Isolde is to be married off to Marke, King of a faraway land. She's being taken there by Tristan, the king's nephew and confidante. Isolde loves Tristan, and he loves her. A hopeless situation, and a love that can find its fulfillment only in death.

This "happy ending" in the hereafter can be clearly heard in Richard Wagner's music. And that is rendered true to the score in very performance of his operas. With the scene and the action, it's different. Here directors have the scope to take liberties.

And Katharina Wagner does take certain liberties in her interpretation of "Tristan and Isolde." The world she shows is in the here and now, and, after Isolde sings the "Liebestod" (Love-Death) over Tristan's corpse, she doesn't die herself but is roughly pulled off by King Marke. Earthly power prevails.

A deeply dark view

In Act 1, the soloists shift about aimlessly in a labyrinth of staircases. In the black space of the second act, metal bars resembling bike racks change position to become rounded prison cells for Isolde and Tristan, caught helpless in the glare of spotlights. Rather than drinking the love potion, they pour it on the floor. In a planned double suicide, both cut gashes in their arms on the metal bars. Act 3 consists mostly of the wounded Tristan's dreams and delusions. On a stage that is even darker than before, Isolde appears in triangular structures that are suddenly illuminated and then disappear, sometimes at stage level, sometimes hovering in the air. At one point, Tristan grasps the woman, only to have her disappear into thin air, and is left clutching only her robe.

All that can be found or interpreted in Richard Wagner's text and music. Katharina Wagner's cautious staging is no revolutionary new interpretation of the piece. On the other hand, neither were the worst fears of festival visitors confirmed: that she would turn the action on its head - as she did with her rendition of the "Mastersingers" in 2007 - and overload it with gratuitous effects. This work of the 37-year-old stage director could hardly stir up rage or indignation in the audience.

If a production's success is to be measured in the lack of boos at the premiere, the new "Tristan and Isolde" can be judged a success. The few boos mixed into the storm of ovations for conductor Christian Thielemann and for soprano Evelyn Herlitzius, on the other hand, are difficult to explain. Stepping in on very short notice for another soloist, the German singer's performance was beyond reproach - and, cleverly budgeting her energies, she triumphed in the final solo. Even more luminous, pitch-precise and clearer in articulation was American Stephen Gould as Tristan. Only very, very few singers can truly master the role - even among those who perform at the Richard Wagner festival.

A new trend?

Christian Thielemann, now the Bayreuth Festival's music director, has complained in the past about all the fuss made over stage presentations, while the musical side is scarcely mentioned. In that light, when Thielemann appeared for five curtain calls after the final chord - with and without the cast - it seemed like a statement. The stage production team and its director, on the other hand, only appeared once, briefly. Looked at this way, the message is: The music is in good hands here.

And the staging? If this "Tristan" is seen as the beginning of a trend, then it signals an era of relative calm. Audiences seem, after all, to be weary of stage director Frank Castorf's random and sometimes absurd antics in the current "Ring" production in Bayreuth. And the festival has canceled its contract with the provocative artist Jonathan Meese, who would have guaranteed a scandal in the planned 2016 production of "Parsifal."

Does that point to a crisis at the Richard Wagner festival? Probably instead to a period of consolidation at the beginning of the era of Katharina Wagner as its sole managing director.