To remind: all this good work belongs to the overwritten script. Its relation to the world of the original, and to the music, is tenuous when not adversarial. It doesn’t for a moment extenuate the feral auteurial transgression. But it does allow us to see Stone’s talent, and regret that it is not put to use in an honest interpretation of a worthy play. As to Skelton’s singing: the role of Tristan lies lower than that of Otello, and higher than that of Siegmund, and thus serves the conformation of Skelton’s voice better than either of my previous encounters with him. That conformation somewhat parallels Stemme’s—an overly pharyngeal, insufficiently underpinned engagement that deprives the voice of much ring or brightness, but that is not yet dysfunctional. He uses the pharyngeal shadings for some sensitive singing in the Liebesnacht and endures the travails of Act 3 stoutly, though the timbre grows increasingly dull and those top A-flats and A-naturals often sound like “the ceiling.” There’s a real singingacting gift here, but I wish he sang differently.

Brangäne: In the Munich production, von der Damerau represents my earlier generalized complaint perfectly. A good instrument: attractive quality, sizable enough, many good notes, no awful ones, even some substance at the bottom. But no real connectivity, no etching of word into note or stitching together of a line. It’s not exactly not legato, but not legato, either. So her Act 1 pleas to Isolde (“Isolde! Herrin!“, etc.) go by unobjectionably, but without narrative targets, and the Act 2 Watch makes the same pleasant but vague impression. Her playing of the part shoots for a sisterly feel, erasing any mistress/servant distinction, but that’s no doubt directorial. Both these Brangänes play with the chest of magical philtres as if opening a box of chocolates—Haribo missed a great product-placement bet here. At Aix-en-Provence we have Jamie Barton, with whom my only earlier sighting was a near-total misfire (see Notes on Orfeo, 11/22/19). This is more like it. The voice sounds large and juicy, both round and bright, with some boomy low notes she seems to enjoy. She plays the part as an earthy, enthusiastic modern Young Adult (tattoos up the arms) who feels things passionately, which makes for an entertaining, energetic persona, but sometimes leads her away from sustained musical direction (her Watch, too, wanders into a watery nowhere) and does not always correspond to the tone of the musical setting. Stone’s influence is clear, and one wonders if this is the modern singer’s dispensation: to go unquestioningly with other people’s ideas of both physical characterization and then, in keeping, with how to sing, how to use the voice, rather than establishing how one sings, and deriving character action from that.

Kurwenal: Can’t say that Munich’s (Wolfgang Koch) doesn’t have a stout vocal engagement. He does. But it’s fixed in place, the same barbed, undifferentiated tone regardless of the indicated affect. He’s OK with the rough Act 1 song, but Act 3 sounds like an unimaginative Alberich from beginning to end. His Aix counterpart, Josef Wagner, is presented as a sort of buttoned-down personal assistant, and that’s rather how the voice responds, too: a secure but narrow baritone with, again, little timbral variety. He can fire off all the top Fs and F-sharps of Act 3, and even the top G of the challenge at Melot, without a problem, but with the same impact as a middle C—an “even scale” to a fault. His acting is intelligent within the production context.