A loyal reader writes:

I wanted to let you know that the Tristan prima was a disaster. Only because of the Tristan (which, I guess we can’t relegate to a minor consideration), since it was otherwise mostly okay — if you can accept zero visual dramatic sense in the whole expedition. (As an extreme illustration of this last, the audience laughed aloud as the couple quaffed the potion. I wonder if this has ever happened before in history anywhere in the world. Granted, this was partly because of the ludicrous lighting effect, but I don’t think the man, woman, or child exists who would have laughed under any crazy staging whatsoever when Nilsson and Jess Thomas took their medicine. No, ma’am.)

Mr. Master (since I don’t aspire ever to know him well enough to call him “John Mac”) is, without any doubt, the most repellent thing I’ve ever witnessed on the Met stage, and I’m a hardened veteran. I’m not one of your “lookists” when it come to opera. But I have never seen such an ungainly, repulsive mass of flesh supporting such an unpleasant visage on any stage. He had great trouble getting up and down (which, on a set without furniture, he was required to do often) . . . .

And the sound! His voice sounds completely untrained. And if it is, in fact, as nature left it, nature should be ashamed. He seems to have a very defective ear as well, since he sang drastically out of tune. The love duet was a torture on pitch grounds alone. Voigt must have died a thousand deaths.

And the sound! His voice sounds completely untrained. And if it is, in fact, as nature left it, nature should be ashamed. He seems to have a very defective ear as well, since he sang drastically out of tune. The love duet was a torture on pitch grounds alone. Voigt must have died a thousand deaths.

This doesn’t constitute a thorough, fair account of all aspects of the evening, but I did want to say that, in 37 years of Met attendance, I’ve never witnessed such boos as the poor man received at the end of this debacle. The shrug with which he received them did, I feel, do him credit, however.

Our own JJ is assigned to review the February March 14 performance of Tristan and so your doyenne will have no comment until that critique appears in Gay City News.

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