Le Vin herbé

Composer: Frank Martin Director: Polly Graham Conductor: James Southall

“Early 20th century composers fled from Wagner’s monstrous shadow in many different ways,” said Richard Morrison in The Times, “but no reaction was more symbolic than Frank Martin’s”. At a time when Wagner’s work was being “appropriated and warped by the Nazis, and the Nazis themselves were invading France”, the Swiss composer released a new, French-language setting of the Tristan and Isolde story. “Martin’s version is chalk to Wagner’s cheese.” It is based on a different account of the medieval “love-triangle tragedy”. The action lasts just shy of two hours, rather than five. And whereas Wagner’s opera requires a “gargantuan orchestra”, Martin’s uses only seven strings and a piano” – a model of Swiss economy.

In this Welsh National Opera production, director Polly Graham has “come up with the appealing idea of placing the musicians centre stage”, said Kate Kellaway in The Observer. It may be a tacit admission that “it’s the music that counts the most” ( Le Vin herbé is technically an oratorio, not an opera) and the mini-orchestra, together with a chorus that chants the story, is certainly “marvellous to listen to”. But the “central island of musicians” can make the action feel “marginalised”, and conductor James Southall’s “animated presence” creates a strange contrast with the “static” chorus. Well, I loved it, said Rian Evans in The Guardian. The music –“never indulgent”– allows “the ritual of life, love and death” to unfold “with a quiet but unerring monumentality”.

The two leads certainly don’t disappoint, said Stephen Walsh on Theartsdesk.com. Tom Randle puts in a “thoughtful and touching” performance as Tristan. Opposite him, Caitlin Hulcup is “unflatteringly wardrobed”, but sings so arrestingly that “the music blots out the visual image”. Yet as good as this production sounds, it lacks “emotional variety”. With all the emphasis on the tragedy and almost none on the love story, the whole thing is utterly gloomy from start to finish. “It’s not one for faint hearts.”