Tristan in Cardiff

In Cardiff for the revival of Tristan on Saturday, with Phillip Joll as Kurwenal; strange because I heard him in the role with WNO in the early 1980's in the production with Linda Esther Gray and John Mitchinson, conducted by Reginald Goodall. Not in Cardiff, but in Coventry in a converted cinema (the Birmingham Hippodrome was being re-built).

During the dinner interval we were sitting on the edge of Cardiff Bay, having our picnic when two elderly ladies started chatting to us. There were not at the production, but had seen the opera the last time that WNO had performed it. They talked about the fact that people would not come back after the interval. As if anyone could leave before the Liebestod. Well, they did; amazingly the theatre was emptier for the last act.