Hard on the heels of Nikolaus Lenhoff's new Glyndebourne staging of Tristan and Isolde comes English National Opera's revival of David Alden's 1996 production of the same work. In some respects the two versions are both complimentary and antithetical. Lehnhoff calmly and flawlessly analyses Tristan's metaphysics to produce an interpretation of great cogency and beauty, occasionally purchased at the price of the opera's emotional extremism. Alden gives us neuroses and emotional wildness in spades, but seemingly distrusts the opera's philosophical underpinnings.
Where Lenhoff's lovers strive for mystical fusion beyond the phenomenal world, Alden presents us with an obsessive, self-absorbed pair, out of touch with reality and barely capable of communicating with each other. Susan Bullock's fiery Isolde paces about the ship in Act I like a caged animal, flings savage taunts at Jane Irwin's prim yet masochistic Brangäne and keeps Morold's mummified head in her luggage like some fetishistic totem.
She and David Rendall's Tristan perform the central love duet as a pair of parallel fantasy monologues. He worships her, Madonna-like, when she appears in a niche in the crumbling walls of Ian MacNeil's set. She is turned on by memories of him attacking Morold with his sword. After Tristan's death - bloody and messy, jolting the audience like a slap in the face - she remains unable to look at him, singing the Liebestod lost in a dream and seemingly very much alive when the final curtain falls.
Vocally things are mightily impressive. Bullock, manic and incisive, has a touch of metal in the voice that cuts thrillingly through the orchestra even at the most powerful climaxes. Rendall sings with a combination of beauty, steadiness and great heft. Irwin, her tone wonderfully creamy, is a glorious Brangäne. The rest of the cast isn't quite in the same league. Jonathan Summers's voice is now fraying a bit, which makes him less than ideal as Kurwenal, and he is further hampered by being curiously got up like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, albeit minus the blue war paint. Matthew Best is a rather dull King Mark, his diction poor compared with everyone else.
In the pit, Dietfried Bernet lets the score unfold with a lingering sensuality. There are some over-slow speeds on occasion, though the playing is often gorgeous. Musically this is an imposing achievement, though it doesn't always obliterate the awkwardness of Alden's production.
· In rep until June 8. Box office: 020-7632-8300.
