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Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde – Highlights
RSO Wien · Bertrand de Billy, conductor Deborah Polaski (Isolde) · Heidi Brunner (Brangäne)

Since her Bayreuth-debut in 1988’s Ring (Barenboim/ Kupfer), the American soprano Deborah Polaski un-doubtedly numbers among the great Wagner-inter-preters. No one else, after 1914, has sung the Brünn-hilde on the „green hill“ as many times as Deborah Polaski! But besides Brünnhilde, it is clearly the rôle of Isolde that Polaski is identified with nowadays.

Deborah Polaski – Isolde

“In the summer of 1857 I decided to interrupt my work on the Nibelungen project by taking on a shorter work which would put me back in touch with the theater again. Tristan and Isolde was begun in this year; its completion, however, due to all manner of disturbances, was delayed until 1859.”


It was meant to be a “short work”, “simple” and able to be performed “with humble means”, as Wagner wrote elsewhere. When it came to the theater, Richard Wagner had been concerned about practical matters from his youth on – but a realist in judging his own plans? Never! No other of his works ever placed such enormous difficulties on opera houses and performers as this summum opus about eros-thanatos. If Wagner’s musical language has not become any easier for orchestras, it has at least become more accessible to them. For those who sing the main roles, however, the physical and spiritual requirements remain almost “inhuman” – and only the absolute exceptions in any given generation of singers measures up. Since the premiere of this work almost 140 years ago, the few great “Tristans” and “Isoldes” have become very well known; each leaving his or her permanent mark on the respective role. So sensational are such performers that they are held in the highest esteem.

The American soprano Deborah Polaski is undoubtedly one of these chosen few. Born in Wisconsin/USA, she went to Europe immediately after completing her studies and debuted in Gelsenkirchen as Senta in Wagner’s Dutchman. Despite many detours, the works of the Bayreuth master have always remained her focus.

In today’s terms and time-scales, Deborah Polaski has pursued her career slowly, beginning primarily on German stages such as Freiburg, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Stuttgart or Dusseldorf before achieving her breakthrough after the mid- 1980s in Munich and Berlin and then at La Scala in Milan.

Her major international breakthrough followed in 1988 with her appearance in the new Barenboim/Kupfer production of Wagner’s Ring in Bayreuth.

Together with Siegfried Jerusalem, John Tomlinson, Graham Clark, Günther von Kannen and many others, she became one of a core of the new generation of Wagner interpreters who began dominating the major opera stages of the world.

But there was first a surprising fermata after Deborah Polaski’s Bayreuth debut: in fall 1988 she announced her temporary retirement from the opera stage for personal reasons. She returned one year later, personally strengthened and artistically matured, taking opera stages and festivals of the world by storm and transforming her name into that which it stands for today: the ideal union of performance and vocal artistry. She is a singer whose honesty, radiance and fascination has set an example for the next generation, and whose interpretations, thanks to her personality and art, uncover new facets in old, well-known opera roles – interpretations which will remain tied to the name Deborah Polaski. She has achieved this as have only few artists in opera history. She returned to Bayreuth in 1991, sang Brunnhilde in the Barenboim/Kupfer Ring and repeated this role in the following production from 1994 to 1998 under James Levine and Alfred Kirchner. No singer after 1914 (and only one before!) has sung Brunnhilde so often on the “Grüne Hügel” as Deborah Polaski. The second “trademark” of the highly dramatic soprano has become Richard Strauss’s Elektra. Since her debut with this role in Darmstadt in 1983, she has sung it over 150 times throughout the world under the most renowned conductors and most significant directors, in Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, Milan, Florence, Sydney, Munich, Leipzig, Cologne, Dresden, Vienna, Salzburg – and there will certainly be many more occurrences.

The singer has taken on numerous other dramatic roles during her career : Wagner’s Senta, Venus, Ortrud, Sieglinde and Kundry as well as R. Strauss’s Färberin, Marschallin and Ariadne, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Berg’s Wozzeck-Marie, and recently Berlioz’ Cassandre and Dido in the Les Troyens or Janác¡ek’s “Küsterin” in Jenufa.

But in addition to Brunnhilde and Elektra, Isolde is undoubtedly the role which Deborah Polaski is primarily identified with.

She sang the role for the first time in 1983 in Freiburg and then in Amsterdam. Following a longer recess, she took on the role again for a new production in 1995 at Dresden’s Semper Oper. After this, she repeated it in rapid succession at the Osterfestspiele in Salzburg under Abbado, Florence under Mehta, Tokyo also under Abbado, Berlin under Barenboim and very recently Barcelona under Bertrand de Billy, the conductor featured on this recording.

Isolde is not only the longest and most dif- ficult of all soprano roles, it places dramatic and interpretive demands on the singer that have never been made before – and are still hardly imaginable. Wagner’s “plot” – as he ironically titled his work – could not be accomplished with the means of his time’s opera theater, either vocally or dramatically. And until today, there is no real “recipe” for managing this unusually long, many-sided and in some ways unfathomable role. Naturally, there is no one way, and the important interpreters of this character have found the most varied manners of illuminating Isolde.

Deborah Polaski’s approach is astonishing in two regards. On the one hand, although she has all the necessary vocal means required by a dramatic soprano, she first worked on the role’s lyrical and piano passages. Due to her exceptionally full middle and low range, this allowed her to connect Isolde’s unusually low parts effortlessly with the character’s high, dramatic outbursts. On the other hand, Polaski has freed Isolde from exaggerated hectic and false pathos; one never forgets that she is an Irish king’s daughter who retains her pride and vulnerability throughout the first act. One of Polaski’s additional trademarks has always been the way she penetrates the text. This is particularly evident in the second act during Isolde’s dialog with Tristan, when they discuss which world they will find each other and be united in again. This almost philosophical discourse, found shortly after their first exuberant encounter, is one only Richard Wagner could set to music. It reveals Isolde as Tristan’s equal – not as an emotional character who only offers material for Tristan, or as a heroine whose emotions are set free from all constraints. The discourse between the figures as well as with themselves is of course the actual center of this drama, and Deborah Polaski is an ideal interpreter for it.

The excerpts found on this recording concentrate on Isolde; one might ironically say “Isolde without Tristan”, which is not entirely true, as he is ever-present in the conflict with Isolde’s confidante Brangaene and in the third-act monologs. In addition to Isolde’s major scenes, the preludes to all three acts are included here because they not only set the scene – in all senses – but also provide symphonic reflection on the “plot”.

This recording was made in the large recording studio (Grosse Sendesaal) of the Austrian Radio Broadcasting Company in February 2004 and is based on the cooperation between Deborah Polaski and Bertrand de Billy circa two years before (June 2002) at the Teatro Liceu in Barcelona. De Billy was the principle conductor at this house after its reopening in 1999 until summer 2004. Deborah Polaski debuted here as Isolde in this famous old venue on the Ramblas; this recording’s Brangaene, Swiss singer Heidi Brunner, participated in the series of performances as well.



Heidi Brunner – Brangäne

Heidi Brunner was born in Lucerne, and besides singing, also studied organ and conducting in Zurich, Lucerne and Basle. She made her debut in the title role of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and was soon afterwards engaged by René Jacobs for Orontea in Basle and L’incoronazione di Poppea in Innsbruck. After various appearances in Biel, her career took her to the state theatre in Dessau, where she spent two years as a member of the ensemble and drew national attention especially as Giovanna in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. This was followed by Cenerentola and Werther in productions by Christine Mielitz at the Comic Opera in Berlin, and subsequently by her debut at the state opera in Berlin, initially as Roggiero in Rossini’s Tancredi. She enjoyed great success as Rosina in Ruth Berghaus’s Barbier production. At the beginning of Klaus Bachler’s directorship, Heidi Brunner joined the Viennese Folk Opera as a member of the ensemble, where she won the public’s hearts as Sextus in Nicolas Brieger’s Tito production under the musical direction of Arnold Östmann and as Cenerentola in Achim Freyer’s production under the musical direction of Gabriele Ferro. Further to Hansel in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (The Bat), she was also heard as Elvira in Don Giovanni and Adalgisa in the new production of Norma. At the same time, she made her debut as Rosina at the Viennese Folk Opera, where she subsequently also sang Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Idamante in Idomeneo and the Muse in Tales of Hoffmann.

At the Viennese Festival Weeks in 1998, she sang in Achim Freyer’s new production of L’Orfeo; one year later, she appeared at the Osterklang festival in Massenet’s Maria Magdalena. Most recently, she sang Idamante in Nicolas Brieger’s Idomeneo production under the musical direction of Bertrand de Billy at the 2003 KlangBogen festival in Vienna; in Autumn, she sang Schoenberg’s Expectation at the Folk Opera.

In Munich, she likewise appeared in Freyer’s Orfeo production at the Prinzregententheater, and was heard in the role of Siébel in the new production of Faust under David Pountney and the musical direction of Simone Young.

In recent years, Heidi Brunner’s career has begun to move from Mozart and Rossini into the dramatic roles. She sang her first Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos (Ariadne on Naxos) in Nancy under Bertrand de Billy, and her first Octavian in Rosenkavalier in the theatre in Meiningen under the musical direction of Kirill Petrenko. For Heidi Brunner, the Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona has become another important sphere of activity; here she has enjoyed great success since her debut in Mozart’s Tito, both with her first Brangäne and at the side of Edita Gruberova as the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, and most recently as Dorabella in Così fan tutte.

Concert work and song recitals have been an important part of her career since the very beginning.

Bertrand de Billy, conductor

Bertrand de Billy, the Vienna RSO’s new principle conductor, lead his orchestra to a triumphant success in the Musikverein concert hall.” This is how Viennese music critic Wilhelm Sinkovicz titled his review in “Die Presse” on November 17, 2002, in his discussion of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Schubert’s Great C major Symphony with its brandnew principle conductor. “The applause was clearly demonstrative,” continued Sinkovicz, “but the performance of Franz Schubert’s Great C major Symphony – which even a few famous conductors … have honourably failed at in just this concert hall – proves that with Bertrand de Billy, the Viennese have attracted one of the younger generation’s really significant maestros to this city. It proves as well just what superlatives this Radio Symphony Orchestra is capable of. Today, the ensemble has a first-class, virtuoso array of woodwinds as well as a string sound which – especially in the first violins – can only be termed as exquisite. De Billy conducts Schubert based on the insights of recent musicological research, i.e. ‘cleaned up.’ He presents this music with some new accents and dynamic nuances which are unfamiliar to Viennese ears, but has not done away with Schubert’s Viennese sound. Even in the Andante, de Billy brought about an absolutely breathtaking dramatic development which emerged completely naturally from the flow of the music.“

The review in the Neue Kronenzeitung “…With a monumental performance of Schubert’s Great C major Symphony, de Billy created the kind of tension and dramatic energy which proved him to be a leading conductor of the younger generation.” was almost identical with the one in the Oberösterreichische Zeitung one month later wrote after a guest appearance of the Vienna RSO in the Linz Brucknerhaus. Even more than at de Billy’s premiere in Vienna one month ago, the orchestra and its principle conductor have demonstrated the paradigm change: the 20th century remains the orchestra’s focus – but other than that – it has no more boundaries. The surprise succeeded. This recording was made in December 2003 after another public concert of this symphony in the large studio of the Vienna Radio Hall.

Born in Paris in 1965, Bertrand de Billy was trained at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique and subsequently played violin and viola in various orchestras in his home city. At the Orchestre Colonne, he became the assistant of Pierre Dervaux, and very soon changed over completely to the conductor’s desk. Even at this early stage, the young musician was developing a repertoire that went far beyond the standard works of the orchestral literature, and a brilliant career as a symphonic conductor was generally expected of him. Even at this point in his career, it was not too soon for de Billy to produce a surprise. He was aware that the concert podium was only a part of the musical spectrum, and as a young musician he did not want to miss out on the experience and demands of the opera stage. So he decided, almost overnight, to accept an offer from Dessau to discover his affinity for the stage there as Kapellmeister, and soon as deputy GMD. His gifts very rapidly became known, and he began to receive invitations, particularly to Spanish opera houses. By the time he left Dessau, after two years, the great opera houses of the world had already become aware of him. He decided, in spite of all other offers, again to take a position as Kapellmeister, this time at the Volksoper in Vienna, where he had already made his début in 1994 with Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. In parallel with this, however, his international career was now developing rapidly, particularly through the opera houses. London’s Covent Garden, the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels very soon became his next steps. However, two houses in particular were crucial: on the one hand, the Vienna State Opera, and on the other, the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Placido Domingo discovered the young conductor during a performance of Hamlet at the Vienna Volksoper, and invited him on the spur of the moment for a production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the opera house he managed in Washington. Domingo also later became the godfather of de Billy’s Los Angeles début, where the famous tenor went on stage as Don José in Carmen under de Billy’s direction. But above all it was Domingo’s recommendation that secured Bertrand de Billy’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera, again with Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, where he has since been among the most important guest conductors.

It was not until the development of his career on the opera stage that he began to be cast somewhat as the “French” conductor, and although the future was to show that his musical capabilities are open for a much broader spectrum, he was apparently for many houses the conductor they had long sought for this difficult repertoire.

Exciting as the course of his career was, de Billy always remained sceptical about the life of a “travelling conductor”, and therefore accepted the invitation to become from 1999 the principal conductor at the rebuilt Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona. De Billy set himself from the beginning a limit of five years for this phase, in which he had the objective of completely reorganising the musical department of the house and redefining the position of the orchestra in this traditionally singer-oriented house. Certainly, following the splendid premiere of Puccini’s Turandot, he necessarily conducted works from the standard repertoire such as Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Bohème, and only one French work, Thomas’ Hamlet. However, the works of Mozart and Richard Wagner formed the focus of his “Five Year Plan”. Mozart, according to the firm belief of the recognised orchestra trainer Bertrand de Billy, is the basis of all orchestral culture, and Richard Wagner the challenge that the orchestra needs to ensure that it continues to develop on its own initiative. With the operas of Mozart and Wagner, de Billy also had his great successes in Spain, and Bertrand de Billy, the Mozart conductor, soon became an international brand-name to parallel his work with French music.

Bertrand de Billy’s connection with opera was now internationally so widely known and so successful that there was great surprise at the news that he was to become principal conductor and artistic director of the RSO Vienna from autumn 2002. A few voices were then to be heard querying whether he had sufficient symphonic repertoire, whether he had the experience with contemporary music, etc., that were needed to take on such a responsible post. At this time it had already been forgotten that de Billy’s musical foundation originally lay in symphonic music and that the performance of the music of contemporaries was and is for him just as much an inevitability as it is for every other.

When he appeared in October 2002 for the first time in the Vienna Musikverein as principal conductor at the head of his orchestra, the programme was as if the pattern for his further work. Mozart’s Linz Symphony, a premiere of the young Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud and Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique were on the programme, and de Billy made it clear from the beginning that he was not prepared – as many of the Vienna culture establishment would have liked – to leave the orchestra in the ghetto of contemporary music and the classical modern.

“An orchestra that cannot play a Mozart symphony properly is not good enough for a premiere either” – this is one of de Billy’s guiding principles, and since then works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Mahler have become just as clearly a part of the image of the orchestra, without the cultivation of the classical modern and the interest in the musical present day suffering from it in the slightest. Today, the flexibility of this orchestra is as much admired as the interesting programmes it offers, and the works of the French orchestral literature in fact form a determining coloration.

Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien (RSO Wien)

The Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna emerged in 1969 from the Great Austrian Radio Orchestra founded in 1933, and since then has been making a name for itself as one of the most versatile orchestras in Austria. Since its foundation, the RSO has primarily concentrated on promoting contemporary music. Under its principal conductors Milan Horvat, Leif Segerstam, Lothar Zagrosek, Pinchas Steinberg and Dennis Russell Davies, the RSO Vienna has continually expanded its repertoire, which ranges from the pre-classical era to the avantgarde. Bertrand de Billy has been the principal conductor of the RSO Vienna since September 1, 2002.

Further to the concert series for the Musikverein (musical society) and Konzerthaus (concert hall) in Vienna, the orchestra regularly appears at the major festivals and is linked particularly closely to the Salzburg Festival and the Klangbogen festival in Vienna. The RSO Vienna’s extensive touring activities have taken it to the USA, South America, and Asia as well as various European countries. To date, guests of the RSO have included such well-known artists as Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Bour, Andrew Davis, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Gielen, Hans Werner Henze, Ernst Krenek, Bruno Maderna, Krzystof Penderecki, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Hans Swarowsky and Jeffrey Tate.

The RSO Vienna’s extensive list of recordings for ORF (Austrian television and radio) and on CD includes works of all genres, as well as a large number of first recordings such as works by Schönberg, Hauer, Wellesz, von Einem, Cerha and other contemporary Austrian composers.

Most recently, the orchestra has put on productions of works by Luciano Berio, Philipp Glass, Gija Kantscheli and Valentin Silvestrov (under Dennis Russell Davies) as well as making much-discussed recordings of Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni and Eugen d’Albert’s Tiefland under Bertrand de Billy.