By ANTHONY TOMMASINI [NY Times, 3 August 2006]

BAYREUTH, Germany, Aug. 2 — With the conclusion of the new production of Wagner’s epic “Ring des Nibelungen” here on Monday night, you might think that the directors of the Bayreuth Festival would have given everyone a day off to recuperate. But that is not the way this place works. So on Tuesday it was “Tristan und Isolde,” a modern-dress production by Christoph Marthaler that was introduced last summer and is still provoking strong reactions.