"A performance to write home about" Lisa
Gasteen triumphs at Covent Garden in Tristan und Isolde
It was not that long ago that Lisa Gasteen, with Horst Hoffmann gave
an impressive concert performance of excerpts from Tristan und
Isolde and then the full staged performance in Melbourne for Opera
Australia. It is then indeed gratifying to have our impressions of
Ms Gasteen's vocal and acting gifts confirmed by the critical reception
she received after her Covent Garden debut in the role of Isolde
Stephanie Bunbury, in her April 9 2002 review, "A performance
to write home about", describes how Ms Gasteen's "London
audience stamped and cheered as Australian soprano Lisa Gasteen took
her first bow on the stage of the Royal Opera House. Gasteen had triumphed
in the title female role in Wagner's four-hour epic Tristan and
Isolde, one of the most difficult roles in grand opera. After
the first act, however, the question was already doing the rounds
of the house bars: Who is she? Where has she been?"
"The top of her voice is bright, athletic and apparently tireless
and lower down it takes on rich, solid colours ... You have to
search back for many a year to find so naturally gifted an Isolde,"
said Rodney Milnes in The Times. See http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/08/1017206310254.html
for the whole review.
Tim Ashley Guardian Unlimited, Monday 8 April 2002 noted that
Tristan und Isolde "Form[ed] part of Bernard Haitink's
adieu to the Royal Opera….
"The playing is shockingly beautiful. The lovers, however, aren't
ideally matched. Tristan is sung by Wolfgang Müller-Lorenz: accurate,
if weak of voice….
"Isolde is the Australian Lisa Gasteen. Winner of Cardiff
Singer of the World in 1991, she's matured into the most intelligent
of contemporary Wagner sopranos, tireless, voluptuous in tone, outstanding
in her response to the text and glowingly rapturous. The rest of the
cast are exemplary. Go and hear it - just avert your eyes."
[Editor]
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