…About Petra Lang it is difficult to add much to what I wrote last year about her splendid performance as Isolde: I praised it then and said how these performances from her are destined to linger in the memory as much as those she gave from 2011 to 2015 as Ortrud in Neuenfels’s rat-infested Lohengrin. Hers is not the typical Isolde voice we have become accustomed to today but has the qualities of the great Bayreuth singers of this role from times past such as Martha Mödl, Astrid Varnay, and Ingrid Bjoner (who was one of the first Isoldes I ever saw) amongst others. With her own very individual sound the eternally youthful Lang is now as great a singer of Isolde as I suspect all of those were. Not only is she a wonderful singer but she brings every character she creates to vivid life and never for one moment does Lang ever give less than 100%. Her Isolde goes through an extraordinary range of emotions from the very beginning of the opera which I have remarked on previously: initial fury towards Tristan that culminates in uncontrollable desire and passion, contempt for Kurwenal and a steely determination with Brangäne. What an intensely physical performance Katharina Wagner also demands from Lang with all the climbing up and down the set Isolde must do in Act I.

However superb she was in the first two acts – when a native German speaker would have understood every word she sang – Petra Lang came back at the end of the opera for a truly remarkable Liebestod that note for note was the Verklärung (Transfiguration) Wagner intended. ‘Mild’ was sung on a delicately refined thread of sound and she did exactly the same with her final word ‘Lust!’. It is almost as if it was all sung on one single huge breath. Lang made me and – from the ecstatic reception she got at her curtain calls – almost everyone else in the Festspielhaus believe that she really did expect Tristan might come back to life – and this made the final few incandescent moments even more poignant…

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…Petra Lang ist eine erstrangige Isolde, von einer enormen Bandbreite des Ausdrucks. Allein die höhnischen Hexenzüge im ersten Aufzug, die doch bei mancher Isolde schal geraten, zeigen, wie viel Kundry und Ortrud sich noch in Langs Stimmbändern verstecken…

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„Tristan und Isolde“: Die Musik wird zum Liebestrank

…Petra Lang und Stephen Gould meistern ihre Titelpartien mit Bravour…Petra Lang glänzt in den tiefen Lagen, ihre Soprankraft strahlt ungetrübt…

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Buhrufe für „Tristan und Isolde“ in Bayreuth

Die Bayreuther Festspiele stellen die Gender-Frage

…Dieses Jahr ist [Petra] Lang ganz auf der Höhe, verkörpert eine souveräne Isolde, vom tiefen Mezzo bis in die brillanten Spitzentöne hinein, vom frechen Mädchen bis zur drangsalierten, gleichwohl autonomen Frau…

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…This was an ideal cast. Petra Lang is glorious: the sound is that of a Golden Age soprano at her peak. She has ample power, solid top notes, and the ability to portray acute emotion. Her Liebestod was unforgettable…