Tristan und Isolde; LSO/Gergiev

Done, "George Bernard Shaw speculated after one of his visits to the Bayreuth Festival, a Wagner Theater was built at Hampton Court or Richmond Hill, not to say Margate Pier." He argued that, given the British enthusiasm for Wagner, profit would be guaranteed and the "social usefulness tremendously greater" than that derived from other public pleasure dome, where money is wasted. The culture secretary might think interested in this.It's never too late to dream. A famous resident Margate, Tracey Emin could Have fun designing a neon slogan for the purpose, a good follow-up of the beach promenade commemorating Turner Gallery, which opened in the next year. Where better? It was on Margate Sands, after all combine to TS Eliot, "nothing with nothing," began The Waste Land, from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde text for quotes. His wife said the city, it was "quite strange and we do not like it," this is the kind of remark made about Bayreuth.Thanks Eliot, a line at least from High German in the minds of many operatic resistant A-level English student have crept in: "dull and empty the sea" - desolate and empty the sea - sung by the shepherds out for Isolde's ship in the 3rd Act, when Tristan is dying. The idea of the 20 Century, the greatest modernist poets, post-nervous breakdown and was staring at the sea from a humble refuge on the Isle of Thanet and thinking of Wagner's majestic love-in-death music-drama casts, both poetry and opera in a new perspective.The English Bayreuth imagination is by no means dead. Wasfi Kani, founder and CEO of Grange Park Opera, is also now replicate still looking for somewhere in London Wagner's purpose-built theater. "Open with London the capital of Europe, and the Bayreuth Festival for only 30 days a year, of course, there are enough people want to experience that wonderful acoustics," says Kani. "There is enough private capital in London, and enough commitment to the art of letting it happen. This will not be one of the government-funded organization and not be affected by cuts in this regard." Do not scoff. It has already built a theater. It can happen.This is a prelude by the accounting treatment for the manic excitement, which was the Philharmonic's semi-staged Tristan and Isolde, which eventually reached the UK five years after Peter Sellars production premiered in Paris in advance. A first-rate international cast of Gary Lehman and Violeta Urmana out as a lover, with a video by Bill Viola and Esa-Pekka Salonen joined admired as a conductor, promised five hours delight, as well as complex technical challenge for all involved. Thus it is proved. On the Festival Hall, and reportedly in Birmingham Symphony Hall, the audience roared and jumped from her seat at the end, while wiping her eyes.The problem with the production of intense passion is that you often do not know where to look. With the singers at the front of the stage (though sometimes distributed around the auditorium), orchestra up behind a 11 meter high screen on the back and captions, there was no single point of contact. This is less a complaint than a statement of why this thrilling musical experience that was missing last ounce of impact. The thoughtful, never too literally visual narrative employs Viola characteristic imagery of water, fire, sea, night, forests, vast horizons, which are slowly approaching, and the people in ritual or biblically inspired poses: prelapsarian, baptisms, transcendent .Lehman had outstanding stamina and Mana. The mere experience of hearing her sing with such mastery of a lack of tenderness or subtlety, which was abundantly supplied by the top-drawer supporting cast of Brangäne (Anne Sofie von Otter, smart and vigilant) made the statement, wrong King Mark (Matthew Best ) and the most affected of all, Jukka Rasilainen as Kurwenal, troubled, and rigidly faithful to the pain. Salonen, conducting, with amazing coolness and no evidence of frenzy was still passionate.To the end he looked wrung out. He had a right.The Philharmonic - and male chorus, too - were perfect. Solos were well taken, with particular praise for the English horn and viola. You can sample at a safe distance Wagner, a different kind of canvas, in a live relay on Saturday, the new Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, started her new ring in 20 years (with Bryn Terfel as Wotan and Director by Robert Lepage), which opened on Monday with Hollywood glamor, watch thousands in Times Square, and a predictable reaction of joy and rebellion. Act fast: the Barbican is sold out and participating Picturehouse cinemas are filling fast.In the flood of new season concerts, which started London Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Valery Gergiev, on a heavily Russian autumn, daring with opening fanfare: two works by Rodion Shchedrin (b1932), one-time head of the Russian Union of Composers and a brave voice of freedom in the face of Soviet pressure. Carmen Suite (1967), written for the Cuban National Ballet with his wife, ballerina in the title role in Bizet's score is poured over a sugar solution in water of bongos, vibraphone, and other, often witty, percussive invention. It was played with spirit, but wore thin after 40 minutes.His Piano Concerto No. 5, with Denis Matsuev as the sporting soloist, culminating in a perpetual motion much as Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but not as it struggled to play down a program note, quite as exciting as with. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by Ravel as showing the LSO at their most assured and masterly. Always looking for ways of renewal gives the LSO String Experience scheme young professionals the chance to play as extras in some concerts. Three were under the strings last Saturday.A double bass player who catches the eye because of his boyish, infectious enthusiasm, turned out to be a Russian, Nikita Naumov, 24, returns a string-player experience a couple of seasons. He grinned and all, but dance like the twittering and twittering woodwinds, in the archaic sense of the word in the "ballet of the chicks in their egg shells." No wonder. Well, complete and he is a guest principal bassist of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.