GMG member LisztianWagner was set to attend this year's festival (for the first time, IIRC). I hope she shares her thoughts as well. (Ci sei, Ilaria? 
).
I was very happy to have attended the Festspiele for
Tristan und Isolde; it was the first time I went to Bayreuth and it was a wonderful experience, absolutely one of the greatest emotions of my life!
I was more overwhelmed by being at the sacred temple of the wagnerian art than by the performance of the opera, the staging was too modern and completely distorting Wagner's ideas about Tristan and the
Gesamtkunstwerk for me, who I love more traditional productions. The first act took place in a large room full of stairs, Tristan and Isolde seemed openly fallen in love even before drinking the love potion, which was not drunk at all; in the second act, the lovers were locked, with Kurwenal and Brangane, in a sort of mad house with strange machines, Marke was not a noble king, heart-broken by Tristan's betrayal, but he had fun to spy Tristan und Isolde; the scene of Tristan's delirium, with Isolde continuing to appear in different parts of the stage in triangles of light, was an interesting idea; but in the finale, after the
Liebestod, I excpected Isolde was transfigured and died, but it didn't happened. It was horrible to see the singer singing something and acting in a completely different way.
Musically anyway, Thielemann did an excellent job, he conducted a very powerful, passionate performance; the singer were all fine, but unfortunately Evelyn Herlitzius hasn't got the right voice for Isolde in my opinion, she was too sharp in the highest notes.
