Going with the storm
Ralf Pleger and Alexander Polzin on their staging of ‘Tristan und Isolde’
Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde poses a major challenge to every opera director. To turn the unendliche stream of monologues and dialogues in this masterpiece into enduring images, La Monnaie brought together two complementary visual artists. The German film director Ralf Pleger is well-acquainted with the Wagnerian universe: his documentary on the life and work of this composer won him the Public Award on the 2013 World Film Festival of Montréal. For this new production, he joins hands with the German sculptor Alexander Polzin, who previously at La Monnaie created the impressive stage design for our 2017 production of Aida. In this video portrait, both artists contemplate their approach to Wagner’s timeless hymn to love and death.
