Analysis on Adolphe Appia’s Tristan und Isolde
Adolphe Appia’s desire to reform theatre as a medium of self-expression is evident in his artistic design for the production of Tristan und Isolde (1923). The purpose of this essay is to emphasize Appia’s innovative techniques of utilizing set, light, and actors during the rehearsal process of Tristan und Isolde while analyzing his intentions behind making such choices that seemed to be “far ahead of his time … [and] little understood by his contemporaries” (Volbach 1). Appia’s perception of theatre, as a medium to face reality rather than to escape from it, is portrayed in his design. His artistic work focuses on an individual's internal, psychological turmoil over the external, physical time and place. The protagonists of Wagner’s opera, Tristan and Isolde, and their release of pent-up passions also mirror Appia’s own struggle to manifest his theatrical vision during the show’s rehearsal, since both the fictional characters and Appia himself are forced to repress their romantic/artistic aspirations.
When Appia “was invited by Arturo Toscanini to participate in a new production of Tristan und Isolde at La Scala, Milan” as a set designer, he suggested that the “chief problem faced by a designer in presenting the settings for Tristan und Isolde … involves the evocation of an inner and spiritual conflict” (Beacham 140, 142). Appia’s original idea to materialize the internal feelings of the characters when creating the set conflicts with the “deeply rooted traditions [of] … Italian theatre’s habits of improvisation” (Beacham 142). “[T]he complacency of painted scenery [that is] still fully established [goes] … much against the principles of [Appia’s] scenic approach” (Beacham 142). Appia’s personal struggle can be seen concerning his scenic design of Act One where Tristan and Isolde drink the love potion and fall madly in love with each other. In conducting this scene, Appia divides “the stage into two sections, one to represent the real world onboard the ship, the other to evoke the spiritual condition of Isolde in her retreat” (Beacham 143). This is arranged to “distinguish between the outer world of the ship … and the inner struggle of Isolde, who tried in her torment, to evade an unacceptable reality” (Beacham 143). A tent creates this division, as Tristan and Isolde profess their love within this tent while the rest of the crew remain outside on the ship. Scenic design that represents the characters’ emotional dilemma reflects Appia’s own reality because, like Isolde, who struggles to ‘evade an unacceptable reality’ where she must marry King Mark, Appia is also forced to struggle with his “internal difficulties with the technical staff of La Scala” and the “negative attitude [of critics] toward [him] after opening night” (Volbach 3). The “interior of the tent which is a place of the soul, and the outside, which represents for the two protagonists the hostility of the day and its relentless demands” is similar to Appia’s situation, in which the soul of an artist must lie dormant and compromise with the ‘hostility’ of his staff and the ‘relentless demands’ of art critics for a conventional painted backdrop setting — based on their narrow, conservative want for traditional realism (Beacham 143).
Appia’s decision to replace the scenic painting with a three-dimensional set is not without logical reason because he claims that “illusion produced by paintings on vertical flats, and the illusion produced by the three-dimensional and living body of the actor, are entirely contradictory” (59). Ironically, what the critics deem realistic (elaborate scenic painting) is unrealistic in Appia’s terms as it “pretends to produce for us an illusion of reality … [b]ut this illusion is itself an illusion because the presence of the actor contradicts it” (59). Since Appia strives to create theatre as an illusion that reveals (instead of concealing) reality, his focus on the characters’ emotions rather than the backdrop painting allows the performance to be more relatable to the audience. Appia’s empathic approach to draw his art and audience closer together is proven successful as it has become a dominant theatre style. Tristan and Isolde continue their forbidden love affair, and Appia refuses to regress his set design to the dominant taste of the Italian audience. The transcendent quality of Tristan and Isolde’s love is also within Appia’s love for his art, and such transcendence is “impossible to convey through purely realistic and quotidian scenery” (Beacham 147). Appia understands how reality can be portrayed more realistically through metaphors, and his usage of the set as a symbol to convey the complex psychology of human beings supports his understanding of the collapse between art and human — how one is a metaphorical reflection of the other.
Moreover, Appia utilizes light as another tool to metaphorically represent the emotional and psychological state of Tristan and Isolde. In Act Two, King Mark leads a hunting party that allows the lovers to freely express their emotions, while isolated in the dark castle grounds. When Tristan enters the scene where Isolde awaits with a single lighted torch, “the castle park is no longer factual reality for Isolde,” and only Tristan is the focus of her perception (Beacham 143). “Lighting … convey to the audience only those scenic elements of which the characters themselves are psychologically and emotionally aware … enabling the audience not merely to witness, but to participate imaginatively, in the inner dramatic action” (Beacham 143). “As they hold one another … the outside world [is] virtually dematerialized,” and as “[t]he stage grows darker… for them, and for the audience, only their overwhelming passion exists” (Beacham 144). By using simple, minimal set in this scene to de-emphasize the external setting of the castle while emphasizing the lovers’ passions with the glow of the torch, Appia physically demonstrates the significance of lighting on stage: “Lighting is an element in its own right, whose effects are limitless. Set free it becomes for us what the palette is to the painter” (61). Appia uses light not only for its traditional purpose to brighten the physical stage but to reveal the unseen (Tristan and Isolde’s emotions of love and longing) and intensify the present dramatic moment on stage. Rather than emphasizing the physical setting like most artistic directors of his time, Appia shifts the weight of importance to “the entire range of events that occur in this setting” (63).
In the latter scene of Act Two, the dim lights allow the audience to focus on the building suspense juxtaposed by the only two lights lit on stage, one representing the lovers while the other foreshadowing King Mark’s dreaded entrance. “[T]he love duet [is] bathed in a soft, violet light — while … [where] King Mark entered [is] kept open, dark and forbidding,” shedding an ominous red light towards the unexpecting lovers (Beacham 144). The high stake and great distress that come with the inner and spiritual essence of this opera invite the audience to emotionally invest in a direct, heightened experience with the scene unfolding on stage. Spectators’ heightened sensitivity forces them to be spiritually included in this dramatic sequence, and thus, serves Appia’s objective with his lighting to “make them living, and spread the harmony of their vibrations in space” (114). The simple display of light and set in Act Two may cause the stage to seem a bit empty, but this space is what creates spiritual room for the spectators to “awaken and intensify their own capacity for self-awareness and experience of profound emotion” (Beacham 151). The minimalist setting amplifies the fervor evoked by the lovers’ desperate embrace, and in turn, the audience is compelled to embrace the artistic spectacle in front of them by immersing themselves and allowing their emotions to flow, as Tristan und Isolde “provide the means not to escape from life, but to intensify and enhance it” (Beacham 151).
The significant role of lighting extends to Act Three where it blends with the actors’ dynamic expressions of love, hope, and despair. Wounded from an earlier battle, Tristan lies dying by a wooden trunk and Isolde hurriedly arrives at the scene. After Tristan’s tragic death, Isolde’s end shortly follows, and the lovers perish together. Appia’s lighting direction for this sequence enhances the dramatic acting of Isolde when she realizes Tristan’s demise; “Isolde … [has] enough light until the end to show the transfiguration in her face — then suddenly — when she falls on Tristan, the light fade[s] away unnoticeably into a dark night” (Volbach 3). Appia makes clever usage of light as a setting sun, which also functions as the blood from Tristan’s wound. Therefore, the waning sunlight and the approach of darkness serve as a symbol of Tristan’s own termination. Isolde’s hope to be reunited in life with Tristan is crushed as “the lovely, radiant light of day … is, in reality, their illusion … with its last rays surround[ing] the protagonists with a wreath of blood” (Beacham 144).
For the performers to flexibly stimulate such powerful emotion not only for themselves but also for the audience, Appia applies a certain acting technique, which engages “the performer in rigorous training in musically coordinated movement … [also known as] eurhythmics” (Beacham 150). This training helps the actors to fully immerse themselves into their roles by expressing themselves as individuals within their characters. Acting is now more than just an imitative technique since the actors are now agents of action, motivated by objective. The line between illusion and reality is blurred within the embodiment of an actor since according to Appia, the “human body does not seek to produce an illusion of reality — it is itself reality” (61). This collapse between illusion and reality within an actor’s body is extended to the relationship between the spectacle and the spectator because the spectators are composed of the same bodily elements as actors. Appia’s unique acting method, where actors have the autonomy as interpreters of their own characters, supports his theory of the “human body to rediscover itself” (115). Humans’ ability to rediscover themselves through diverse interpretations of a given situation is represented by Appia’s actors, but they are also largely applicable to the audience. The humanism behind Appia’s acting philosophy re-defines the “human body as an expressive element … that captures the mind, stimulates the imagination, and opens the way for experiments which may be diverse” (115).
As a futuristic theatre creator, Adolphe Appia has made numerous attempts to change the given conventions of theatre design with the use of a three-dimensional set, symbolic use of lighting, and respect for actors’ individualism. Appia’s antipathy towards a custom that obstructs diverse thought is what drove his theatre reformation movement forward. Appia’s belief that his decisions on set, lighting, and actor training will allow the performance to be more akin to reality than the traditional design for opera setting supports his progressive idea to implement theatre directly to our own lived experience. For Appia, the “House [is a] … cathedral of the future,” and the barrier between stage and audience is almost non-existent, as what goes on the stage serves as a reflection of the audience’s reality (115).
Works Cited
Appia, Adolphe. “Actor, Space, Light, Painting.” 1919. Texts on Theatre, edited
by Richard C. Beacham, 1st ed., London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 114–115. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315002972.
Appia, Adolphe. “Ideas on a Reform of Our Mise en Scene.” 1902. Texts on Theatre, edited by Richard C. Beacham, 1st ed., London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 59–65. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315002972.
Beacham, Richard C. “Tristan und Isolde at La Scala and the designs for Hamlet.” Adolphe Appia: Artist and Visionary of the Modern Theatre, 1st ed., London: Routledge, 1994, pp. 139–158. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315077284.
Volbach, Walther R. “Appia’s Productions and Contemporary Reaction.” Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 1961, pp. 1–10. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3204393.