Word: wagner
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde (Angel 3588). Still the best recorded Tristan ever, with Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and Soprano Kirsten Flagstad...
...ever devised. Approaching the bar, he plants his right foot, spins a full 180°, and launches himself backwards into the air. Experts are at a loss to explain why the "Fosbury Flop" works. "I wouldn't advise anybody else to try it," says Oregon State Coach Berny Wagner. But it sure does the trick for Dick. Last month Fosbury cleared 7 ft. 2 1/4 in. to win the N.C.A.A. championship, and last week he soared 7 ft. 1 in. to take first place at the U.S. Olympic trials...
There is no doubt that Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is an opera about sex. But how sexy it is depends on whether the audience relies more on its eyes or its ears. While the score throbs with passion, most of the dramatic action takes place in the souls of the title characters, with very little left for the stage...
...Isolde are lovers who seem to forget that they have bodies. Sometimes the audience wishes it could forget too, in view of the age and bulk of most singers who are up to the demands of the vocal score. Not even the composer's innovation-minded grandson, Wieland Wagner, could change this. His productions introduced heavy hints of Freudian psychology, but the lovers' bond remained shrouded in symbolism. It all seemed to bear out Wagner's advice to Nietzsche that to get the most out of the opera, he should take off his glasses and listen...
Musically, Barlow and Heater displayed strength and sweetness without quite achieving the fervor and finesse of the best Wagnerians. They were supported only adequately by the Belgrade Philharmonic. But if the performance fell short of a complete artistic triumph, it clearly earned a special place among modern Wagner productions. It will be remembered as the one that put the tryst back in Tristan...