Wagner - Tristan und Isolde / Bohm, Nilsson, Vickers

It is so sad that an amazing opera like this, with so great performers is so badly recorded- or so badly conserved. The sound quality is awfull, never the less I enjoyed it, for the love for Wagner, and to know better mythic performers like Nilsson and Vickers

Jon Vickers and Birgette Nilsson were the best of their generation and here they perform in roles for which they were world famous under a conduction, Bohm, who directed this music also as no one else of his day. But....and this is why this recording of a live performance done in an outdoor stadium is for the collector ... this movie is of low quality of sound and visual. One evening these Greats performed before what appears to be an enormous crowd in a semi staged performance of the opera. I am not sure how it was picked up: high tech the record is not. I would not have missed watching and listening to this through for the talent of these giants comes through...yet it is annoying.

I am not a hard-core audio- or video-phile, in the sense I am quite tolerant to bad quality recordings whenever the artistic outcome deserve the sacrifice. Still I find very hard to afford this title. Especially the audio track is tremendously bad. I wonder how much Kultur is responsible for this: are there any other editions of this program around?I would give one star : the second star is really for the outstanding singers performance

Like most of the other reviews the high mark is for Birgit and Vickers. The are both awesome. The expression on his face tells the story and makes it worth the price. They are totally let down by tech. Lighting is dark and the camera angles weird this last however provides some interesting and unique views that can be fun

I am sure that this was the perfect Tristan, after all it has the Great Birgit Nilson and the Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, but the sound and picture quality is just terrible. I am very disappointed with this release because I never saw Birgit live, but know numerous people who did and continually extoll her virtues.I don't doubt that Karl Bohm is excellent and inspires the cast to give a sublime performance, but a film made in 1973 should not be of this poor quality. Where did Kultur get their master, certainly not the original film? Also, they claim it has been digitally remastered, well I dread to think what state the original source was in. To be honest I can't believe it has been cleaned up and remastered, the sound and picture are totally unacceptable.What ever was Kultur thinking of? I recommend that you do not buy this and that you lobby Kultur to ensure that they do not sell such a poor quality DVD again.In fact, I wanted to give this no stars at all, but Amazon wouldn't let me.

Despite the poor qualities of sound and picture, this is still the best production of its kind. With Nilsson and Vickers singing the title roles and Bohm as the conductor, it brings out the best of this Wagner's work. It is a very satisfying performance.

Discs were numbered backward, but one can cope. This is a classic performance.

That Nilsson and Vickers, the greatest Wagnerian singers of their generation, should have been subjected to a realisation as appalling as this one, is truly criminal. The sound is muffled, fuzzy, distorted and plagued by low-frequency backround noise: about as good as that delivered by an analogue phone line. The video is grainy and has the crude contrast of early fifties westerns. For much of the time, the sound and video are not even synched correctly. Part of the problem is a cavernous, circus-like staging, but primarily it is a matter of sheer engineering incompetence. By far, this is the worst video recording of an opera I know. And yet by far this is the greatest opera ever written. Hence the crime. If you care about Wagner, if Tristan is the ultimate statement beyond which lies nothing but oblivion, spare yourself the pain of mere incompetence. Listen to Nilssons' audio recording under Solti, or Flagstad's under Furtwangler. And if you need the visual stimulus, then the Mehta Munich production, despite its... staging, is still preferable to this ... At least you can close your eyes...

If you seek hair raising on your arms and see beyond poor video and audio this is amazing. Birgit is great and Vickers live the roll as Tristan.

Pas toujours de bonne qualité ce dvd n'est que la copie du film enregistré à l'époque. Mais les connaisseurs sauront passer au dessus de tout cela pour retouver Nilson et Vickers qui ont un jeu incroyable. A recommander aux connaisseurs ...

Cette sublime représentation à laquelle j'ai eu la chance d'assister est très mal desservie par cette "remastérisation à l'américaine". A mon souvenir la bande réalisée par Pierre Jourdan était à peu près propre.Là, c'est inaudible, pas de stéréo, son désynchronisé, voix méconnaissables. On se demande s'il s'agit de la bande son originale. (...)