In an essay called ‘Wagner’s fluids’, Susan Sontag concludes, ‘The depth and grandeur of feeling of which Wagner is capable is combined in his greatest work with an extraordinary delicacy in the depiction of emotion. It is this delicacy that may finally convince us that we are indeed in the presence of that rarest of achievements in art, the reinvention of sublimity.’ For a performance of any of Wagner’s mature works, either we feel we are in the presence of sublimity or the whole thing is a frustrating waste of time, as almost all performances are.
At Longborough, which this year has revived its 2015 production of Tristan und Isolde, the combination of depth, grandeur and delicacy of emotion are, for once, successfully present, and the result is one of the most exalting experiences I have had in the opera house. What was intermittently present in 2015 is continuously and therefore cumulatively present this year.
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