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Wagner Society in NSW Inc
Terence Watson The following are extracts from a review I wrote of Viola video installations in Sydney in April 2008. Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is the story of a love so intense and profound that it cannot be contained in the material bodies of the lovers. In order to fully realise their love, Tristan and Isolde must ultimately transcend life itself.’ Bill Viola/Anthony Bond Whether or not this is what Wagner intended in his music-drama, it is certainly an interesting point for any artist to start from to create a work of art, particularly one that pays homage to one of the greatest works of art in the Western canon. Viola tells us that the ‘images in the three acts contain interweaving, recurring threads but are distinct in reflecting different stages of the lovers’ path toward liberation.’ In choosing huge screens and surround-sound with which to create his works (museum installations as he calls them), Viola is certainly responding to the scale of Wagner’s work. The Project was originally conceived as a nearly four hour accompaniment to semi-staged version of the work in the Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Later, it was used as part of the mise-en-scène for a fully staged performance at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in April 2005, with other performances in New York in May 2007. From my perspective, the three works we had in Sydney seem to attempt a commentary on experiences of transcendence, a topic that Viola is clearly comfortable with, given his interest in Eastern religious and philosophical thought that has influenced his understanding of Wagner who also read extracts of Eastern religious texts in translation, as well as Schopenhauer’s interpretation of them. After the Paris performance, Viola edited the material into a ‘series of video art works independent of Wagner’s music’ (catalogue notes). That the works are independent of Wagner’s music to some extent begs the question as to how much they remain a commentary on/accompaniment to the music-drama and how much they are Viola’s own meditations on ideas and feelings raised by the Tristan and Isolde story, including the story as mediated by Wagner’s imagination. It is hard to describe the impact of a work of art that starts out, as does Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), for example, as a film of a huge bucket of water being dumped on a prostrate male figure who then rises and disappears out of the top of the video screen as the film of the water falling is reversed so that the water appears to raise the figure into the heavens. According to the catalogue, Viola sees this as a representation of Tristan’s soul ascending, ‘in the space after death as it is awakened.’ In his catalogue note for the exhibitions, Anthony Bond, Head Curator, International Art, Art Gallery of NSW, wrote that the ‘love of Tristan and Isolde was so spiritually profound that it was not possible for them to express it adequately through their material form…’. It may be queried that the lovers are not able to consummate their love adequately in their material form, given the fairly explicit suggestions by Wagner in his score that they have previously and do again achieve mutual climax in Act II of the music-drama, although possibly with a coitus interruptus resulting from Melot’s arrival on this occasion. I read Wagner’s text as saying something different: that no truly spiritual love, as Tristan and Isolde grow to share, can exist in a world in which mundane events and limited people continually interfere with the couple’s exploration of their inner world. If you missed the installations and are interested in seeing a taste of Viola’s work you can visit his website, www.billviola.com/biograph.htm, or the Art Gallery of NSW’s website at www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/events?search_domain=S&search_type=pf&search_category=0&q=viola&siteid=1&pageid=1782&mysource_site_extension=search&new_search=true. (You can read all my comments on the Tristan Project on the Society’s website or email me at tristansydney@optusnet.com.au or call me on (02) 9517 2786 for a copy).
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