The staging of Tristan and Isolde at the Berlin Deutsch Opera was innovative. They moved the place settings to a modern home, deluxe ship cabin and a cozy fire side room. Clothing was modern too. The first startling oddity was a naked woman passing through, followed by a young boy sitting with a paper boat. Needles are used to shoot up the love potion and poor Isolde gets over ogled by young men who laugh at her loss of fiance. In act two, a young male is naked and digs a grave. Act three is set up as an old folks home. 

The overall impression becomes not just that the love story of Tristan and Isolde is timeless, but it is the story of all of our passions, addictions, loves, and losses, because you see others acting as the lover, the bearer of a bad mistake, the stupidity of shooting up, the eventual aging of all the cast. It was somewhat funky but I like the added notions so I would say it worked very well.

I noticed how intensely dramatic Richard Wagner was in his opera scenes. Act 1, Isolde is twisted with loss for her lover, kindness for an ill man, hatred of her enemy, unexpected love, and prideful at the perceived scorn by which she views Tristan's treatment of her. Act 2 helps explain away his guilt, giving him unexpected honor by giving up what he most loves. The love potion comes off as a reason for revealing truth rather than anything inherent. Act 2 twists impatient lovers, scared, and defiant, loving unto ecstacy, then horrified by being caught, ridiculed by friends, and denounced and guilted by King Mark. Then the rush into having his friend run the sword into Tristan.

In Act 3, you have pain, loss, expectant hope that is denied and denied and denied while friends coddle and impatience and remembered soaring love and then release. So many emotions all playing off of each other. 

The Berlin  Deutsch Opera used both English and German texts shown above stage. It helped seeing them both because I learned how much Wagner had used repetition and rhyme to help hammer home the messages. The dialogue between singers also had a sing and repeat at times, too.

The cast was spectacular. I worried that I wouldn't like the King Mark here as well as when it was sung in Seattle but afterwards I thought Liang Li did a fantastic and much better orated and resonant performance. Unlike the Seattle Opera performance I had attended, the baritone role though seemed split between King Mark and friend Kurwenal, sung by Egils Silins who was very impressive also. Nina Stemme's soprano as Isolde was suitably soaring in the most ecstatic parts. Tristan played by Stephen Gould seemed heroic at times but weak too in his denials of his needs, he was especially effective and sympathetic playing the ill old man. 

Last night's opening performance of Ghost:The Musical was a lovely musical version of the movie that many of us saw a decade back that featured Whoopi Goldberg as the con artist psychic. The Musical offered plenty of stage craft pizazz while offering a play consistent with the movie. The story is fairly simple but relies on the tragic love story of a young couple Sam Wheat, a banker, and his girlfriend, Molly Jenson, an artist.

Sam Wheat, played by actor Steven Grant Douglas, is a kooky amateur musician, ardent lover, stilted in his manners and somewhat distracted at work. He sings a fun take on "Unchained Melody" which is featured several times in several forms.

Molly Jenson, played by Katie Postotnik, sings heartfelt arias that soar and are pretty much understandable by the audience. She plays a heartbroken lover, friend and is somewhat intimidated by the arrival of psychic Odd Mae Brown.

The ghosts are quite convincing songsters and annoyances, but the Subway Ghost is a standout with aid from terrific sound effects.  His instruction scene comes off garbled due to less well done interactions with the sound system.

Oda Mae Brown, played by Carla R. Stewart is introduced with two flunkies plying the trade against Mrs. Santiago. The scene is a smash. This play's Oda Mae is funky, flustered, argumentative, kind.

If only the special effects for good and bad deaths worked the same way in real life, the world might be a better place.

The cast did a great job staying on focus with the love story despite all the complications of the crime and other realm subplots.