This staging for the Metropolitan in December 1999 was received with enthusiasm, as Mike Ashman relates in his interesting booklet. Opera magazine’s critic was more reserved in his reception. Certainly Dieter Dorn’s staging in Jürgen Rose’s quasi-abstract, geometric unit set is mainly arresting in its simplicity, rather reminiscent of Bayreuth’s first postwar production, by Wieland Wagner, that set a trend. Less happily the deeply raked stage creates some bizarre images. Characters are always emerging from trap-doors. A rectangular, phallic-like column, in Act 2, opens for Isolde’s, and later Marke’s, entries. Chess figures, representing Tristan’s feats, dot the floor during his delirium; he is dressed in Samurai-like costume and coiffured similarly.

Blessedly, perhaps, given their figures, the lovers are seen only in silhouette during the love duet. The backdrop changes colours effectively if a little obviously to suggest the mood of each scene – intense blue, for instance, during the love duet, turning dun for the King’s interruption of ecstasy. Within them, Dorn directs his principals sympathetically. Altogether, one is at least grateful for a staging that largely eschews ideas and movement inimical to the score in hand.

The lovers present a problem when their appearance hardly allows suspension of disbelief. Rita Hunter was large, but moved with such dignity and expressed emotions so movingly in her face that one forgot all about her shape. Jane Eaglen never seems so credible an Isolde. The lower and middle sections of her voice are appealing, and she has learnt to phrase with feeling. But once pressure is placed on her upper register it hardens and loses colour. By contrast, Ben Heppner is at once a lyrical and heroic Tristan, and he has the part truly in his voice. There isn’t the searing intensity of a Suthaus or a Vickers but that apart, his is a naturally eloquent portrayal. René Pape’s King is sonorous and finely phrased but not especially moving, and he looks young enough to be the son of Heppner’s Tristan.

The most telling and attractive interpretation comes from Katarina Dalayman, a soprano Brangäne, who acts with proper concern for her mistress and sings with consistently beautiful tone. Hans-Joachim Ketelsen is a routine Kurwenal. There is a plangent, native-speaking Shepherd, but – as so often – Melot is sung by a rasping baritone rather than the requisite tenor.

Levine and his orchestra present a sumptuous account of the score but one short on incandescence and urgency. The sound is mostly good but occasionally hollow. Brian Large directs for DVD with his customary skills, but once more from this source the picture lacks widescreen format. It is such a pity the chance was not taken to record Glyndebourne’s superb performance last summer