Monday 27 September 2010

TRISTRAN AND ISOLDE

If this was the last opera I ever saw I would not mind because for me it was the best.  The passionate film of Bill Viola's complimenting the passionate music of Wagners'.  I was in heaven, transfixed for four short hours, wanting to stay forever in this extraordinary environment that Peter Sellers created in the Festival Hall yesterday. The music like a boomerang using the whole space.  The singing excellent.
If  you haven't experienced a passionate love life you may find Viola's film unnecessary even distracting.  I say to you this, go and have the experience and you will totally be in agreement. He plays with time back and forth, playing, and so so sexual, yet with a beauty and innocence that is rare and real. Through the tunnels of stems, leaves, light flashing images, photographs and video altogether.
With images of woods, fire, a plain yet beautiful couple washing their hands, water like a funnel of passion down their spines, naked walking towards you in stark reality, candles burning, flames.   Sometimes like a vogue fashion shoot, then raw real and exploding, ending with the most incredible levitation, leaving the audience gasping and not wanting to leave.

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