Once, and only once, Furtwängler had a go at stage direction. It was usually a job for Heinz Tietjen, stage director AND conductor, intendant of the national opera, and hihg priest in Bayreuth. It would become customary with the Karajan of the 1960s.
It happened in January 1943 in Vienna: Furtwängler conducted several performances of Tristan und Isolde, with Max Lorenz and Anny Konetzni. Already three years previously he had managed to get out of the reserve the beautiful scenery that Alfred Roller had designed for Mahler’s production in 1903. Yet from that to following in the footsteps of Wymetal or Tietjen… One thing is certain: when Tristan was revived towards the end of that same year, the name of Wymetal reappeared on the programme! To each his own trade.
In any case, the press at the time did not miss the show (click on the article to enlarge it).
