Tristan und Isolde

Visual and Sonic Glories

January 20, 2023 | By Nick Hammond | Music

The famous Paris Opera production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde by director Peter Sellars, in collaboration with video artist Bill Viola, makes another welcome return to the Bastille. There is a reason why this production has remained in the … Read More

Parsifal

A Knightly Cult

June 1, 2022 | By Nick Hammond | Music

I must admit to approaching British director Richard Jones’s production at the Opéra Bastille of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal with some trepidation. Jones’s previous productions of Wagner’s other works, especially the Ring Cycle, have had a tendency to trivialize the most … Read More

Elektra

Hard-Hitting Production of Dark Tale

May 18, 2022 | By Nick Hammond | Music

Richard Strauss’s one-act opera Elektra, the first of his many collaborations with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is unrelentingly hard-hitting throughout its one hour and 45 minutes. No room or time is given for light relief as the heroine singlemindedly pursues … Read More

Tristan und Isolde

The Joys of Tragedy

September 19, 2018 | By Nick Hammond | Music

Some might think that foregoing one of the final days of late-summer sunshine to spend over five hours cooped up in a theater watching Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde demonstrates either an admirable sense of duty or complete madness. When … Read More