{"id":3868,"date":"2026-03-27T23:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T03:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3868"},"modified":"2026-03-27T23:32:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T03:32:29","slug":"wagners-tristan-at-the-met-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2026\/03\/wagners-tristan-at-the-met-then-and-now.html","title":{"rendered":"Wagner&#8217;s &#8220;Tristan&#8221; at the Met &#8212; Then and Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ir49HwUiRl8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The &#8220;Tristan&#8221; participants at the Met on March 9, 1935. Artur Bodanzky is top center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I am in Ann Arbor, participating in a Mahler project with Ken Kiesler and his fervent University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra \u2013 the group with which I memorably toured South Africa a year ago (and about which I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/06\/a-service-to-the-nation-the-university-of-michigan-symphony-orchestra-tours-south-africa.html\"><strong>blogged<\/strong> <strong>and<\/strong> <strong>broadcas<\/strong><\/a><strong>t<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Addressing a class of young conductors this morning, I was reminded by one of them of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metopera.org\/discover\/video\/?videoName=wagners-tristan-und-isolde-orchestra-reading&amp;videoId=6390273413112\">a promotional video<\/a> that I stumbled upon a few days ago. It shows Yannick Nezet-Seguin rehearsing his Metropolitan Opera orchestra in the orgasmic Liebestod from Wagner\u2019s <em>Tristan und Isolde<\/em>. The student who brought it up was commenting on the orchestra\u2019s apparent disengagement \u2013 which is here rendered both audible and visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tendency of the Met orchestra to phone it in \u2013 notwithstanding its high reputation \u2013 is something I\u2019ve felt impelled to comment upon, as have Alex Ross in <em>The New Yorker<\/em> and Joshua Barone in the <em>New York Times<\/em>. Juxtaposing last season\u2019s Met <em>Aida<\/em> with the <em>Aida<\/em> broadcast of February 6, 1937, conducted by Ettore Panizza, I called Nezet-Seguin\u2019s Met orchestra a \u201cmatchbox\u201d versus Panizza\u2019s \u201cpowder keg.\u201d That was in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/05\/what-ails-todays-metropolitan-opera-its-in-the-pit.html\"><strong>May 29, 2025, <em>New York Review of Books<\/em><\/strong> <\/a>(\u201cGrand Opera\u2019s Tribulations\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two nights ago I attended <em>Tristan<\/em> <em>und Isolde<\/em> at the Met and again encountered a crippling lack of urgency in the pit (in this of all operas). Upon returning home I listened to Artur Bodanzky lead the <em>Tristan<\/em> Prelude in live performance at the Met on March 9, 1935. You can hear it <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ir49HwUiRl8\">here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodanzky\u2019s is the most memorable reading of Wagner\u2019s Prelude in my experience \u2013 in 10 minutes, it conveys <em>Tristan und Isolde<\/em> more potently than Wednesday night\u2019s five hours. The opera\u2019s preternatural gravitas registers instantly. Its vortex of feeling, its inexorable trajectory are indelibly mapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any present-day listener is challenged to account for this astounding feat of music making. &nbsp;Certainly it can be said that the strings of Bodanzky\u2019s orchestra command an exceptional range of dynamics and texture and inflected song compared to which today\u2019s Met orchestra is another, more confined instrument of expression. Ultimately, however, the difference is summarized by an anecdote that came to mind upon hearing Klaus Makela conduct the Chicago Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Here it is again, from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2026\/02\/klaus-makela-again.html\">my blog of February 26<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am reminded of a conversation I had in South Dakota with Derek Bermel, who had composed something remarkable for the Creekside Singers and the South Dakota Symphony. Derek told me that his clarinet teacher had been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. I was fascinated to learn that \u2013 because broadcast Met performances from the 1930s and \u201840s document a caliber of intense orchestral collaboration unknown at the Met today. Derek had just auditioned the February 12, 1938,&nbsp;<em>Otello<\/em>&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cjRqFxOw2f4\">the greatest Verdi performance known to me<\/a>, with Giovanni Martinelli, Lawrence Tibbett, and Elisabeth Rethberg conducted by Ettore Panizza \u2013 and reported back that it sounded \u201cfundamentally different\u201d from any Verdi he had previously heard. Seated in a hotel lobby \u2013 I think we were in Chamberlain (population 2,600) \u2013 Derek and I spent twenty minutes debating what made that 1938 performance so special. Was it the conductor? The orchestra? The singers? Stylistic authority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cUnbeknownst to us, the late Chris Eagle Hawk, a Lakota tribal elder I knew to be both wise and succinct, was a table away listening to it all. When there was a pause in our discussion, Chris said three words: \u2018They felt it.\u2019 That ended our conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For more on Artur Bodanzky\u2019s Wagner at the Met, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2014\/07\/remembering-artur-bodanzky.html\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am in Ann Arbor, participating in a Mahler project with Ken Kiesler and his fervent University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra \u2013 the group with which I memorably toured South Africa a year ago (and about which I blogged and broadcast). Addressing a class of young conductors this morning, I was reminded by one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-10o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3875,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/3875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}