List Price: $39.98You Pay Only: $27.97 You Save: $12.01 (30%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0044007343210
Format: Classical, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
Number Of Discs: 2
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: August 14, 2007
Running Time: 247 minutes
Sales Rank: 35110
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
Theatrical Release Date: 1983
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Did Tristan die?
As it is very hard to match Karajan's Parsifal in music making terms,it is not easy to bypass music of Boehm/Nilsson/Windgassen Tristan dated 1966.In this wonderful DVD we have an excellent orchestra by Baremboim with a wet creamy grandeur which he does not acchieve for instance in Bruckner.Of course J.Meier is not B.Nilsson,but she works. And R. Kollo is also well placed,without his unpleasent trebles,since Tristan is not exactly bel canto.Of course there are some boring moments at Act 3,due to Wagners prolixity ,typical of a time when idle aristocracy could spend seven hours inside Bayreuth Festspielhaus. May be I have a naive brain,however my eyes were not able to distinguish when or if has Tristan died in this stage. Flavio J.Morsch - Brazil
Rating:  - Tristan und Isolde Lite
Having heard and read so much praise I expected much more from the Ponnelle/Barenboim "Tristan und Isolde" from the Bayreuth Festival of 1981. For one thing, the DVD's video quality is extremely disappointing. Darkness is extremely grainy. Even bleeding most of the color out the video, the quality is that of early VHS which is not good.
Ponnelle's direction and designs are overly quirky and the sets are extremely ugly looking. The opening scene with Isolde on the floor with a cape spreading out covering most of the stage and wearing a ridiculous looking crown (which she rips up after the Narration and Curse) set the tone for most of the balance of the performance, which is a series of misfires better known as opera singers behaving badly. Isolde running about the stage at the beginning of act two in a state of pre-orgasmic ecstasy eventually hitting the ground grinding her body into the ground and simulating having Tristan on top of her is just so silly looking, I couldn't wait for it to pass. Tristan and Isolde looking lovingly at their image in an onstage pond during the Liebestnach was annoying in its reference to their narcissism sapping most of the erotic nature of the duet. I did like Ponnelle's revisionist ending having Isolde disappearing following the Liebestod and after a blackout before the final tableaux. Tristan imagined her return. The lights come up again with Kurvenal holding Tristan's corpse creating a truly heart wrenching scene. The only emotional moment in over ... Read More
Rating:  - An inspired production
This is indeed a very satisfying performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It is a performance filmed on the stage of Bayreuth, but without the audience, in order to give the camera a greater freedom of movement. The staging of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, shows you clearly what a good director could achieve, as opposed to the intolerable nonsense one has so often to put up with some modern productions.
The prelude depicts a misty shore with a calm sea and some rocks in the water. Mist comes and goes with the music. The picture is almost black and white, until the sun rises and lifts part of the mist to leave us somewhere in the middle of the sea. One may presume the Irish Sea.
In Act I this mist disappears and we are shown something that resembles a ship but looks more like an island, with a cave and a tree up front. Isolde wears an enormous dress, which almost traps her in and she has to set herself free.
In Act II we are shown an enormous tree, under which all the action takes place. The tree is lit up differently according to the mood of the Opera and of course there is night to begin with and daylight at the end. There is a wonderful meadow with a spring in front of the tree, which adds to the poetry of the setting.
In Act III, we have another tree, which is thunderstruck and serves at the centre point of the stage. Everything is as described by Wagner until Isolde's ship arrives. Then you realise that this has not really happened and it is Tristan who in his delirium imagines ... Read More
Rating:  - Small-scaled in several ways
Johanna Meier's Isolde brings to mind the famous story of Melba's Brunnhilde, her lovely sound inaudible beyond the front rows. Meier's sound is probably less lovely and more audible than Melba's. Hers is a warm, slightly fluttery, lyric voice. She sings accurately and with appealing legato. But she's a fragile waif against a surging orchestra, incapable of showing Isolde's pride, anger, passion, ecstasy. Rene Kollo is more convincing as Tristan. He doesn't sound heroic. But Tristan's not that heroic a character, especially in this production where he's doom-laden from the start. Meier and Kollo both look good, if somewhat haunted.
The production isn't one of those ingenious resettings. I often like them if they only change the look and preserve the sense. This one retains Wagner's settings, less the castle in Brittany. But it perversely alters the sense at the end. Tristan lives on beyond his death in the stage directions. He has to live so that he can dream Isolde's return and love-death. Ponnelle also used a dream gimmick in his "Dutchman". There it merely framed the story, yet it remained the "Dutchman" story. Here the dream changes the story. This "Tristan" isn't about two souls love-fused so that neither can survive the other's extinction. It's about a melancholy romantic who dreams of his lover as he expires alone.
Rating: - Excellent Singing but staging is less interesting
This is one of those productions that might be better without the video. Although I find no fault with the singing and conducting, the staging and scenery seem to be more about expressing the director's ego than about the opera.
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