A much-publicized show, “The Tristan Project,” took place at Avery Fisher Hall on Wednesday night. What is it? It is a performance of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” featuring video images done by Bill Viola, a “visual artist.” The famed director Peter Sellars serves as “artistic collaborator” (not the clearest of titles).

A very great deal has been claimed for this show. Indeed, a Lincoln Center official essentially said in a program note that never before had Wagner truly been realized.

How to describe the Viola “Tristan”? It is sort of “Tristan” with a movie playing front and center. In olden days, organists put music to silent movies. In a way, Mr. Viola has put a silent movie to music. Also, you could say that “The Tristan Project” is a cousin — a distant and artier cousin — of the music videos that have run on television for the past 25 years.

The images are fraught with symbolism, and at times I wanted CliffsNotes. There are water and fire, sun and clouds. In Act I, an actor and actress playing Tristan and Isolde do a slow-motion striptease — ending in the Full Monty. One wag commented at intermission, “I didn’t know Tristan was Jewish!”

Many of Mr. Viola’s images, and ideas, are beautiful. Others, to my mind, are so much grad-school profundity (which is different from profundity). And I wonder whether Wagner has any need of such enhancement. The images can be more distracting than enhancing. But many smart people hail Mr. Viola as a breakthrough genius, and they are not to be hastily dismissed.

Incidentally, Mr. Sellars has written a synopsis of the opera, published in the Lincoln Center program. Here is what the director has to say about King Mark’s monologue: “As he pours out his heart we realize that the King is just a man, that he was Tristan’s first lover, and that the ‘love that dare not speak its name’ is as strong as any other love.”

This is not presented as a theory or a fancy — just the straight dope. Welcome to opera today, ladies and gents!

Modern directors and administrators can’t do away entirely with singers, orchestras, and conductors, and we had some musicians about on Wednesday night. Christine Brewer, the American soprano, was Isolde, and she did not have her best night. An insert in the program informed us she was recovering from the stomach flu. But she is an excellent singer, and she had a commendable night.

Her instrument is both big and beautiful — a lucky combo. Her high notes were exciting, although the Cs were troubled. And she showed a striking, potent lower register. Moreover, she sang with dramatic awareness. This may have been a concert performance — not a full production — and Ms. Brewer may have been competing with those video images, but she was still Isolde.

A quick word on a delicate matter: We sometimes speak of women “of a certain age.” Well, Ms. Brewer is a woman of a certain size. She is not in the Roberta Peters/Bidú Sayão tradition of sopranos. And this will keep Ms. Brewer off a number of operatic stages. Rossini is quoted as saying that opera requires “voice, voice, voice.” (Sometimes this exclamation is attributed to Verdi.) Many of our present administrators and directors say, “To hell with that!”

A Canadian tenor, Alan Woodrow, had been scheduled to sing Tristan, but he was indisposed, and the job fell to Christian Franz, a German. For long stretches, he sang both thoughtfully and heroically. But the Love Duet was not his friend: He flagged and sagged, succumbing badly to the flats. Still, he rebounded for the final act.

John Relyea, the Canadian bass-baritone, was King Mark: rich, sure-footed, and commanding. What else is new with Mr. Relyea? And Anne Sofie von Otter, the great Swedish mezzo, was Brangäne. She, too, was her usual self: musical, stable, and intelligent. Ms. von Otter was a more lyrical Brangäne than a classically Wagnerian one, but she made a case, certainly.

The orchestra onstage was the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by its music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen. He was responsible for some frustration — interpretive frustration. But, in the main, he was sensible and fluid. Outstanding in the L.A. band was the English-horn player, a major soloist in Act III.

By the way, would it be unfair to point out that the best “Tristan und Isolde” conductor in the world — James Levine — happened to be a few hundred yards away, conducting Gluck’s “Orfeo” at the Metropolitan Opera? Yes, it would. And Mr. Salonen served admirably.

Program repeats May 5 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).