Daniel Barenboim (second from right) on a visit to the West Bank barrier last August. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP
There are moments when you begin to wonder whether Daniel Barenboim has discovered a way of cloning himself, writes Luke Harding in Berlin.
The conductor, pianist and advocate for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation has just delivered his first BBC Reith Lecture, under the title In the Beginning was Sound. On Easter Monday he's conducting Radio 3's Wagner marathon, The Ring in a Day. Next week he's embarking on a series of piano recitals in Berlin. And tomorrow he's in action at the city's Staatsoper, conducting a star-studded premiere of Wagner's watery tale of doomed love, Tristan and Isolde.
The new production is part of the annual Festtage, or Easter festival, at the Staatsoper, where Barenboim is musical director. Getting tickets to see any opera by Wagner in Berlin is always tricky - I've never actually managed it. But in this case it's impossible, with a ticket for this summer's World Cup final in Berlin on July 9 probably easier to lay your hands on than tomorrow's event, which has been sold out for months.
The Staatsoper has already put on two Wagner blockbusters this year - the Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Parsifal. And if the pre-production buzz is anything to go by, Tristan could be even better. Barenboim is conducting a heavyweight cast including Katarina Dalayman, Michelle De Young, Peter Seiffert, Rene Pape, and Roman Trekel. Oh, and he's just released his new recording of Mahler's seventh symphony with the Berlin Staatskapelle - one of the composer's least popular and knottiest works.
Barenboim is now 63, but, instead of slowing up, his output appears more prolific than ever. Perhaps it's time the rest of us had a good lie-down.
