Claude Heater Foundation
Tristan und Isolde - Liebestod
Tristan and Isolde - Richard Wagner
(Isolde Project), Krzysztof Penderecki European Music Centre, Poland, August 31, 2019.
The Claude Heater Foundation recently reunited the singers in the title roles – Roy Cornelius Smith (Tristan), Juyeon Song (Isolde,) Tamara Gallo (Brangäne), Brian Davis ( Kurwenal ), John Paul Huckle ( King Mark ), Alexander Kaimbacher ( Melot, Shephard, young Sailor ) and video artist Naomie Kremer with Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra
– as they presented Tristan und Isolde concert performance to an even greater success, at the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music in Poland on August 31, 2019. The production triumphed under the baton of internationally recognized European Maestro Robert Reimer who has conducted with Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Royal Danish Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, and others. Under his leadership, the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra played Wagner’s music for the first time magnificently, receiving an overwhelming, standing ovation from the audience. This receding was recorded and will be released by PARMA Recordings, distributed through Naxos, which is also being submitted as consideration for the 2021 GRAMMY Awards.
From Pizzicato - Remy Franck's Journal about Classical music.
https://www.pizzicato.lu/bemerkenswerte-tristan-einspielung/?fbclid=IwAR2V4NpIBGkuDskLw1HUk6PNZcgzvnlQSq_QIQvtX763Uu8oT0n4hhdvf9w
" When an American independent label launches a recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, one might raise the eyebrows as a sign of scepticism. An opera that hardly any opera house can cast satisfactorily, with an orchestra that has hardly any Wagner experience, a petite Korean woman as Isolde and an American Tristan who sang the role for the first time in 2018? But it doesn’t take long, once the recording is started, for scepticism to turn into amazement, all the more so as this is a live recording.
The integrity and gripping power of this Tristan cannot be denied. Of course, this recording, which was made in the Penderecki Centre in Luslawice, does not reach the level of the absolute reference recordings of the opera, but it is undoubtedly one of the very good recordings (in my opinion, the top of the list is headed by Karajan-Vickers-Dernesch, Böhm-Windgassen-Nilsson, Furtwängler-Suthaus-Flagstad and Karajan-Vinay-Mödl).
The conductor Robert Reimer can undoubtedly take a larger share of this great success. Thanks to his suggestive conducting, the music is powerfully engaging during three and a half hours. With a good dynamic control, many nuances in the colours and an excellent balance, the conductor achieves a lot, but also shows how much he can influence the orchestra, how strong the power of his charisma is on the musicians.
The Janacek Philharmonic responds with a very committed, colourful, well-balanced and attentively intense music-making throughout the opera.
This is already a good basis for an atmospherically dense, deeply breathed and gripping performance.
The American tenor Roy Cornelius Smith is a very sovereign Tristan, who sings vocally so confidently and effortlessly that he can fully concentrate on the interpretation of the role. He loves passionately and dies feverishly, with secure and extraordinarily brilliant top notes and a lot of emotion.
Juyeon Song’s Isolde is no less good: her voice may be a little tight and lack the usual timbre qualities for the role, but she is a highly dramatic singer who is completely absorbed in her role and sings a strong, passionate Isolde. You really wonder where this petite singer gets the strength to sing the demanding role with such great vocal power and expressivity.
Tamaro Gallo is a great, dramatically impressing Brangäne, John Paul Huckle a good Marke, Brian Davis a reliable Kurwenal.
The supporting roles are no less well cast, the choirs are impeccable, and so, as already mentioned, we are dealing here with a quite outstanding recording, also in terms of sound."