''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''),
WWV 90, is an
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
in three acts by
Richard Wagner to a German
libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance
Tristan and Iseult
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illic ...
by
Gottfried von Strassburg
Gottfried von Strassburg (died c. 1210) is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance ', an adaptation of the 12th-century ''Tristan and Iseult'' legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the ''Nibelungenlied'' and Wolfram von Esc ...
. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the
Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with
Hans von Bülow
Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow (8 January 1830 – 12 February 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for es ...
conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "" (literally ''a drama'', ''a plot'', or ''an action'').
Wagner's composition of ''Tristan und Isolde'' was inspired by the philosophy of
Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly ''
The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first editio ...
''), as well as by Wagner's affair with
Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire, ''Tristan'' was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of
chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and
harmonic suspension.
The opera was enormously influential among Western classical composers and provided direct inspiration to composers such as
Gustav Mahler,
Richard Strauss,
Alban Berg,
Arnold Schoenberg, and
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
. Other composers like
Claude Debussy,
Maurice Ravel, and
Igor Stravinsky formulated their styles in contrast to Wagner's musical legacy. Many see ''Tristan'' as a milestone on the move away from
common practice harmony and tonality and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century. Both Wagner's libretto style and music were also profoundly influential on the
symbolist poets of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Composition history
![Wagner Bruxelles 1860](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Wagner_Bruxelles_1860.jpg)
Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the
Dresden Opera
The Semperoper () is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (Saxon State Opera) and the concert hall of the Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra). It is also home to the Semperoper Ballett. The building is located on the T ...
in 1849, as there was a warrant posted for his arrest for his participation in the unsuccessful
May Revolution
The May Revolution ( es, Revolución de Mayo) was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included roughly the terri ...
. He left his wife,
Minna
Minna is a city in Middle Belt Nigeria. It is the capital city of Niger State, one of Nigeria's 36 federal states. It consists of two major ethnic groups: the Gbagyi and the Nupe.
History
Archaeological evidence suggests settlement in th ...
, in Dresden, and fled to
Zürich
, neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon
, twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco
Zürich ...
. There, in 1852, he met the wealthy silk trader Otto Wesendonck. Wesendonck became a supporter of Wagner and bankrolled the composer for several years. Wesendonck's wife,
Mathilde, became enamoured of the composer. Though Wagner was working on his epic ''
Der Ring des Nibelungen
(''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the '' Nibe ...
'', he found himself intrigued by the legend of
Tristan and Isolde
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illic ...
.
The re-discovery of
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Germanic poetry, including
Gottfried von Strassburg
Gottfried von Strassburg (died c. 1210) is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance ', an adaptation of the 12th-century ''Tristan and Iseult'' legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the ''Nibelungenlied'' and Wolfram von Esc ...
's version of , the ''
Nibelungenlied
The ( gmh, Der Nibelunge liet or ), translated as ''The Song of the Nibelungs'', is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The is based on an oral tradition of Germani ...
'' and
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Life
Little is known of Wolfram's life. There ar ...
's ''
Parzival
''Parzival'' is a medieval romance by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival (Percival in English) and his long ...
'', left a large impact on the German
Romantic movements during the mid-19th century. The story of Tristan and Isolde is a quintessential romance of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
. Several versions of the story exist, the earliest dating to the middle of the 12th century. Gottfried's version, part of the "courtly" branch of the legend, had a huge influence on later German literature.
According to his
autobiography, ''
Mein Leben'', Wagner decided to dramatise the Tristan legend after his friend, Karl Ritter, attempted to do so, writing that:
He had, in fact, made a point of giving prominence to the lighter phases of the romance, whereas it was its all-pervading tragedy that impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details.
This influence, together with his discovery of the philosophy of
Arthur Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a ''Tristan und Isolde''."
Wagner wrote of his preoccupations with Schopenhauer and ''Tristan'' in a letter to
Franz Liszt (16 December 1854):
Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the last, love shall, for once, find utter repletion. I have devised in my mind a ''Tristan und Isolde'', the simplest, yet most full-blooded musical conception imaginable, and with the ‘black flag’ that waves at the end I shall cover myself over – to die.
![Mathilde Wesendonck by Karl Ferdinand Sohn, 1850](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Mathilde_Wesendonck_by_Karl_Ferdinand_Sohn%2C_1850.jpg)
By the end of 1854, Wagner had sketched out all three acts of an opera on the Tristan theme, based on Gottfried von Strassburg's telling of the story. While the earliest extant sketches date from December 1856, it was not until August 1857 that Wagner began devoting his attention entirely to the opera, putting aside the composition of ''
Siegfried'' to do so. On 20 August he began the prose sketch for the opera, and the
libretto (or ''poem'', as Wagner preferred to call it) was completed by 18 September. Wagner, at this time, had moved into a cottage built in the grounds of Wesendonck's villa, where, during his work on ''Tristan und Isolde'', he became passionately involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether or not this relationship was
platonic
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It ...
remains uncertain. One evening in September of that year, Wagner read the finished poem of "Tristan" to an audience including his wife, Minna, his current
muse
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...
, Mathilde, and his future
mistress
Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to:
Romance and relationships
* Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a ...
(and later wife),
Cosima von Bülow.
By October 1857, Wagner had begun the composition sketch of the first act. During November, however, he set five of Mathilde's poems to music known today as the ''
Wesendonck Lieder
, WWV 91, is the common name of a set of five songs for female voice and piano by Richard Wagner, (''Five Poems for a Female Voice''). He set five poems by Mathilde Wesendonck while he was working on his opera ''Tristan und Isolde''. The songs, ...
''. This was an unusual move by Wagner, who almost never set to music poetic texts other than his own. Wagner described two of the songs – "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume" – as "Studies for Tristan und Isolde": "Träume" uses a motif that forms the love duet in Act II of ''Tristan'', while "Im Treibhaus" introduces a theme that later became the prelude to Act III. But Wagner resolved to write ''Tristan'' only after he had secured a publishing deal with the Leipzig-based firm
Breitkopf & Härtel
Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf.
The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...
, in January 1858. From this point on, Wagner finished each act and sent it off for engraving before he started on the next – a remarkable feat given the unprecedented length and complexity of the score.
In April 1858 Wagner's wife Minna intercepted a note from Wagner to Mathilde and, despite Wagner's protests that she was putting a "vulgar interpretation" on the note, she accused first Wagner and then Mathilde of unfaithfulness. After enduring much misery, Wagner persuaded Minna, who had a heart condition, to rest at a
spa while Otto Wesendonck took Mathilde to Italy. It was during the absence of the two women that Wagner began the composition sketch of the second act of ''Tristan''. However, Minna's return in July 1858 did not clear the air, and on 17 August, Wagner was forced to leave both Minna and Mathilde and move to
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
.
Wagner would later describe his last days in Zurich as "a veritable Hell". Minna wrote to Mathilde before departing for Dresden:
I must tell you with a bleeding heart that you have succeeded in separating my husband from me after nearly twenty-two years of marriage. May this noble deed contribute to your peace of mind, to your happiness.
Wagner finished the second act of ''Tristan'' during his eight-month exile in Venice, where he lived in the
Palazzo Giustinian
The Palazzo Giustinian is a palace in Venice, northern Italy, situated in the Dorsoduro district and overlooking the Grand Canal next to Ca' Foscari. It is among the best examples of the late Venetian Gothic and was the final residence of Pri ...
. In March 1859, fearing
extradition
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...
to
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
, where he was still considered a
fugitive
A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...
, Wagner moved to
Lucerne where he composed the last act, completing it in August 1859.
Premiere
''Tristan und Isolde'' proved to be a difficult opera to stage, and Wagner considered various possibilities for the venue. In 1857 he was invited by a representative of
Pedro II,
Emperor of Brazil
The monarchs of Brazil ( Portuguese: ''monarcas do Brasil'') were the imperial heads of state and hereditary rulers of Brazil from the House of Braganza that reigned from the creation of the Brazilian monarchy in 1815 as a constituent kingdom o ...
, to stage his operas in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
(in Italian, the language of the Imperial Opera); he told Liszt he was considering settling in Rio, and that that city would be given the honour of premiering ''Tristan''. Wagner sent the Emperor bound copies of his earlier operas in expression of his interest, but nothing more came of the plan.
He then proposed that the premiere take place in
Strasbourg, following interest in the project shown by the Grand Duchess of Baden. Again, the project failed to eventuate.
[Peter Bassett, "Richard Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde''". Retrieved 25 September 2016 ] His thoughts then turned to Paris, the centre of the operatic world in the middle of the 19th century. However, after a disastrous staging of
''Tannhäuser'' at the
Paris Opéra
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...
, Wagner offered the work to the
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
opera in 1861.
![Hans von buelow](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Hans_von_buelow.jpg)
When Wagner visited the
Vienna Court Opera
The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Si ...
to rehearse possible singers for this production, the management at Vienna suggested staging the opera there. Originally, the tenor
Alois Ander was employed to sing the part of Tristan, but later proved incapable of learning the role. Parallel attempts to stage the opera in Dresden, Weimar and Prague failed. Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, ''Tristan und Isolde'' was unable to be staged in Vienna, winning the opera a reputation as unperformable.
It was only after
King Ludwig II of Bavaria
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ti ...
became a sponsor of Wagner (he granted the composer a generous stipend, and supported Wagner's artistic endeavours in other ways) that enough resources could be found to mount the premiere of ''Tristan und Isolde''.
Hans von Bülow
Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow (8 January 1830 – 12 February 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for es ...
was chosen to conduct the production at the Nationaltheater in Munich, despite the fact that Wagner was having an affair with his wife,
Cosima von Bülow. Even then, the planned
premiere on 15 May 1865 had to be postponed until the Isolde,
Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, had recovered from
hoarseness
A hoarse voice, also known as dysphonia or hoarseness, is when the voice involuntarily sounds breathy, raspy, or strained, or is softer in volume or lower in pitch. A hoarse voice, can be associated with a feeling of unease or scratchiness in the ...
. The work finally premiered on 10 June 1865, with Malvina's husband
Ludwig partnering her as Tristan.
On 21 July 1865, having sung the role only four times, Ludwig died suddenly – prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. (The stress of performing ''Tristan'' has also claimed the lives of conductors
Felix Mottl in 1911 and
Joseph Keilberth
Joseph Keilberth (19 April 1908 – 20 July 1968) was a German conductor who specialised in opera.
Career
He started his career in the State Theatre of his native city, Karlsruhe. In 1940 he became director of the German Philharmonic Orches ...
in 1968. Both men died after collapsing while conducting the second act of the opera.) Malvina sank into a deep depression over her husband's death, and never sang again, although she lived for another 38 years.
For some years thereafter, the only performers of the roles were another husband–wife team,
Heinrich Vogl and
Therese Vogl
Therese (Thoma) Vogl (12 November 1845 – 29 September 1921) was a German operatic soprano, the first Wellgunde in Wagner's ''Das Rheingold'', and the first Sieglinde in his ''Die Walküre''.
Life
Vogl was born Therese Thoma in Tutzing, Bavar ...
.
Performance history
The next production of ''Tristan'' was in
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
in 1874. Wagner himself supervised another production of ''Tristan'' in Berlin in March 1876, but the opera was only performed in
his own theatre at the
Bayreuth Festival after his death; Cosima Wagner, his widow, oversaw this in 1886, a production that was widely acclaimed.
The first production outside of Germany was given at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...
, London in 1882; Tristan was performed by
Hermann Winkelmann
Hermann Winkelmann (or Winckelmann) (8 March 1849 – 18 January 1912) was a German Heldentenor, notable for creating the title role in Richard Wagner's ''Parsifal'' in 1882.
Biography
Hermann Winkelmann was born in Braunschweig in 1849. His ...
, who later that year sang the title role of ''
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival ...
'' at Bayreuth. It was conducted by
Hans Richter, who also conducted the first
Covent Garden production two years later. Winkelmann was also the first Vienna Tristan, in 1883. The first American performance was held at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
in December 1886, conducted by
Anton Seidl
Anton Seidl (7 May 185028 March 1898) was a famous Hungarian Wagner conductor, best known for his association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the New York Philharmonic.
Biography
He was born in Pest, Austria-Hungary, where ...
.
Significance in the development of romantic music
The score of ''Tristan und Isolde'' has often been cited as a landmark in the development of Western music. Throughout the opera, Wagner uses a remarkable range of orchestral colour, harmony, and polyphony, doing so with a freedom rarely found in his earlier operas. The very first chord in the piece, the ''
Tristan chord
The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D, and G:
:
More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented ninth above a bass note. It is so named as it is ...
'', is of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal
harmony as it resolves to another
dissonant
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness ...
chord:
The opera is noted for its numerous expansions of harmonic practice; for instance, one significant innovation is the frequent use of two consecutive chords containing tritones (diminished fifth or augmented fourth), neither of which is a diminished seventh chord (F–B, bar 2; E–A-sharp, bar 3). ''Tristan und Isolde'' is also notable for its use of
harmonic suspension – a device used by a composer to create musical tension by exposing the listener to a series of prolonged unfinished
cadences
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (19 ...
, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical resolution. While suspension is a common compositional device (in use since before the Renaissance), Wagner was one of the first composers to employ harmonic suspension over the course of an entire work. The cadences first introduced in the prelude are not resolved until the finale of Act III, and, on a number of occasions throughout the opera, Wagner primes the audience for a musical climax with a series of chords building in tension – only to deliberately defer the anticipated resolution. One particular example of this technique occurs at the end of the love duet in Act II ("Wie sie fassen, wie sie lassen...") where Tristan and Isolde gradually build up to a musical climax, only to have the expected resolution destroyed by the dissonant interruption of Kurwenal ("Rette Dich, Tristan!"). The deferred resolution is frequently interpreted as symbolising both
physical sexual release and spiritual release via
suicide – the long-awaited completion of this cadence series arrives only in the final "
Liebestod
"" ( German for "love death") is the title of the final, dramatic music from the 1859 opera ' by Richard Wagner. It is the climactic end of the opera, as Isolde sings over Tristan's dead body.
The music is often used in film and television produ ...
" ("Love-Death"), during which the musical resolution (at "In des Welt-Atems wehendem All") coincides with the moment of Isolde's death.
The tonality of ''Tristan'' was to prove immensely influential in western Classical music. Wagner's use of musical colour also influenced the development of
film music
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...
.
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely r ...
's score for
Alfred Hitchcock's classic, ''
Vertigo
Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
'', is heavily reminiscent of the ''
Liebestod
"" ( German for "love death") is the title of the final, dramatic music from the 1859 opera ' by Richard Wagner. It is the climactic end of the opera, as Isolde sings over Tristan's dead body.
The music is often used in film and television produ ...
'', most evidently in the resurrection scene. The Liebestod was incorporated in
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
's
Surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...
film ''
L'Age d'Or''. Not all composers, however, reacted favourably:
Claude Debussy's piano piece "
Golliwog's Cakewalk" mockingly quotes the opening of the opera in a distorted form, instructing the passage to be played ''. However, Debussy was highly influenced by Wagner and was particularly fond of ''Tristan.'' Frequent moments of ''Tristan''-inspired tonality mark Debussy's early compositions.
Roles
Instrumentation
''Tristan und Isolde'' is scored for the following instruments:
* 3
flutes (one doubles
piccolo), 2
oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
...
s,
cor anglais, 2
clarinets,
bass clarinet, 3
bassoons
* 4
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
, 3
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s, 3
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
s,
bass tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
*
timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...
,
cymbals,
triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC.
In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
*
harp
* 1st and 2nd
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
s,
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
s,
violoncello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D ...
s, and
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
es (''Die Streichinstrumente sind vorzüglich gut und stark zu besetzen.''
'The string instruments are to be exquisitely cast in quantity and quality.''
''on-stage''
*
cor anglais, 6
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
, 3
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s, 3
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
s
Synopsis
Act I
Isolde, promised to
King Marke in marriage, and her handmaid,
Brangäne, are quartered aboard Tristan's ship being transported to the king's lands in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
. The opera opens with the voice of a young sailor singing of a "wild Irish maid" ("Westwärts schweift der Blick"), which Isolde construes to be a mocking reference to herself. In a furious outburst, she wishes the seas to rise up and sink the ship, killing herself and all on board ("Erwache mir wieder, kühne Gewalt"). Her scorn and rage are directed particularly at Tristan, the knight responsible for taking her to Marke, and Isolde sends Brangäne to command Tristan to appear before her ("Befehlen liess' dem Eigenholde"). Tristan, however, refuses Brangäne's request, claiming that his place is at the helm. His henchman, Kurwenal, answers more brusquely, saying that Isolde is in no position to command Tristan and reminds Brangäne that Isolde's previous fiancé,
Morold, was killed by Tristan ("Herr Morold zog zu Meere her").
Brangäne returns to Isolde to relate these events, and Isolde, in what is termed the "narrative and curse", sadly tells her of how, following the death of Morold, she happened upon a stranger who called himself Tantris. Tantris was found mortally wounded in a
barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...
("von einem Kahn, der klein und arm") and Isolde used her healing powers to restore him to health. She discovered during Tantris' recovery, however, that he was actually Tristan, the murderer of her fiancé. Isolde attempted to kill the man with his own sword as he lay helpless before her. However, Tristan looked not at the sword that would kill him or the hand that wielded the sword, but into her eyes ("Er sah' mir in die Augen"). His gaze pierced her heart and she was unable to slay him. Tristan was allowed to leave with the promise never to come back, but he later returned with the intention of marrying Isolde to his uncle, King Marke. Isolde, furious at Tristan's betrayal, insists that he drink atonement to her, and from her medicine chest produces a vial to make the drink. Brangäne is shocked to see that it is a lethal poison.
Kurwenal appears in the women's quarters ("Auf auf! Ihr Frauen!") and announces that the voyage is coming to an end. Isolde warns Kurwenal that she will not appear before the King if Tristan does not come before her as she had previously ordered and drink atonement to her. When Tristan arrives, Isolde reproaches him about his conduct and tells him that he owes her his life and how his actions have undermined her honour, since she blessed Morold's weapons before battle and therefore she swore revenge. Tristan first offers his sword but Isolde refuses; they must drink atonement. Brangäne brings in the potion that will seal their pardon; Tristan knows that it may kill him, since he knows Isolde's magic powers ("Wohl kenn' ich Irlands Königin"). The journey almost at its end, Tristan drinks and Isolde takes half the potion for herself. The potion seems to work, but instead of death, it brings relentless love ("Tristan!" "Isolde!"). Kurwenal, who announces the imminent arrival on board of King Marke, interrupts their rapture. Isolde asks Brangäne which potion she prepared and Brangäne replies, as the sailors hail the arrival of King Marke, that it was not
poison; rather, she has substituted a
love potion
A love potion ( la, poculum amatorium) is a magical liquid which supposedly causes the drinker to develop feelings of love towards the person who served it.
The love potion motif occurs in literature, mainly in fairy tales, and in paintings, ...
in order to save Isolde from herself.
Act II
King Marke leads a hunting party out into the night, leaving Isolde and Brangäne alone in the castle, who both stand beside a burning brazier. Isolde, listening to the hunting horns, believes several times that the hunting party is far enough away to warrant the extinguishing of the brazier – the prearranged signal for Tristan to join her ("Nicht Hörnerschall tönt so hold"). Brangäne warns Isolde that Melot, one of King Marke's knights, has seen the amorous looks exchanged between Tristan and Isolde and suspects their passion ("Ein Einz'ger war's, ich achtet' es wohl"). Isolde, however, believes Melot to be Tristan's most loyal friend, and, in a frenzy of desire, extinguishes the flames. Brangäne retires to the ramparts to keep watch as Tristan arrives.
The lovers, at last alone and freed from the constraints of courtly life, declare their passion for each other. Tristan decries the realm of daylight which is false, unreal, and keeps them apart. It is only in night, he claims, that they can truly be together and only in the long night of death can they be eternally united ("O sink' hernieder, Nacht der Liebe"). During their long tryst, Brangäne calls a warning several times that the night is ending ("Einsam wachend in der Nacht"), but her cries fall upon deaf ears. The day breaks in on the lovers as Melot leads King Marke and his men to find Tristan and Isolde in each other's arms. Marke is heartbroken, not only because of his nephew's betrayal but also because Melot chose to betray his friend Tristan to Marke and because of Isolde's betrayal as well ("Mir – dies? Dies, Tristan – mir?").
When questioned, Tristan says he cannot answer to the King the reason of his betrayal since he would not understand. He turns to Isolde, who agrees to follow him again into the realm of night. Tristan announces that Melot has fallen in love with Isolde too. Melot and Tristan fight, but, at the crucial moment, Tristan throws his sword aside and allows Melot to stab him.
Act III
![Angelo Quaglio - Bühnenbild Tristan und Isolde](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Angelo_Quaglio_-_B%C3%BChnenbild_Tristan_und_Isolde.jpg)
Kurwenal has brought Tristan home to his castle at Kareol in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
. A shepherd pipes a mournful tune and asks if Tristan is awake. Kurwenal replies that only Isolde's arrival can save Tristan, and the shepherd offers to keep watch and claims that he will pipe a joyful tune to mark the arrival of any ship. Tristan awakes ("Die alte Weise – was weckt sie mich?") and laments his fate – to be, once again, in the false realm of daylight, once more driven by unceasing unquenchable yearning ("Wo ich erwacht' weilt ich nicht"). Tristan's sorrow ends when Kurwenal tells him that Isolde is on her way. Tristan, overjoyed, asks if her ship is in sight, but only a sorrowful tune from the shepherd's pipe is heard.
Tristan relapses and recalls that the shepherd's mournful tune is the same as was played when he was told of the deaths of his father and mother ("Muss ich dich so versteh'n, du alte, ernst Weise"). He rails once again against his desires and against the fateful love potion ("verflucht sei, furchtbarer Trank!") until, exhausted, he collapses in
delirium. After his collapse, the shepherd is heard piping the arrival of Isolde's ship, and, as Kurwenal rushes to meet her, Tristan tears the bandages from his wounds in his excitement ("Hahei! Mein Blut, lustig nun fliesse!"). As Isolde arrives at his side, Tristan dies with her name on his lips.
Isolde collapses beside her deceased lover just as the appearance of another ship is announced. Kurwenal spies Melot, Marke and Brangäne arriving ("Tod und Hölle! Alles zur Hand!"). He believes they have come to kill Tristan and, in an attempt to avenge him, furiously attacks Melot. Marke tries to stop the fight to no avail. Both Melot and Kurwenal are killed in the fight. Marke and Brangäne finally reach Tristan and Isolde. Marke, grieving over the body of his "truest friend" ("Tot denn alles!"), explains that Brangäne revealed the secret of the love potion and that he had come not to part the lovers, but to unite them ("Warum Isolde, warum mir das?"). Isolde appears to wake at this and in a final
aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
describing her vision of Tristan risen again (the "
Liebestod
"" ( German for "love death") is the title of the final, dramatic music from the 1859 opera ' by Richard Wagner. It is the climactic end of the opera, as Isolde sings over Tristan's dead body.
The music is often used in film and television produ ...
", "love death"), dies ("Mild und leise wie er lächelt").
Influence of Schopenhauer on ''Tristan und Isolde''
![Arthur Schopenhauer Portrait by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl 1815](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Arthur_Schopenhauer_Portrait_by_Ludwig_Sigismund_Ruhl_1815.jpeg)
Wagner's friend the poet
Georg Herwegh
Georg Friedrich Rudolph Theodor Herwegh (31 May 1817 – 7 April 1875) was a German poet,Herwegh, Georg, The Columbia Encyclopedia (2008) who is considered part of the Young Germany movement.
Biography
He was born in Stuttgart on 31 May 1817, ...
introduced him in late 1854 to the work of the philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer. The composer was immediately struck by the philosophical ideas to be found in ''
The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first editio ...
'' (''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung''), and the similarities between the two men's world-views became clear.
Man, according to Schopenhauer, is driven by continued, unachievable desires, and the gulf between our desires and the possibility of achieving them leads to misery while the world is a representation of an unknowable reality. Our representation of the world is
Phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried ...
, while the unknowable reality is
Noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', which ...
: concepts originally posited by
Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...
. Schopenhauer's influence on ''Tristan und Isolde'' is most evident in the second and third acts. The second act, in which the lovers meet, and the third act, during which Tristan longs for release from the passions that torment him, have often proved puzzling to opera-goers unfamiliar with Schopenhauer's work.
Wagner uses the metaphor of Day and Night in the second act to designate the realms inhabited by Tristan and Isolde. The world of Day is one in which the lovers are bound by the dictates of King Marke's court and in which the lovers must smother their mutual love and pretend as if they do not care for each other: it is a realm of falsehood and unreality. Under the dictates of the realm of Day, Tristan was forced to remove Isolde from Ireland and to marry her to his Uncle Marke – actions against Tristan's secret desires. The realm of Night, in contrast, is the representation of intrinsic reality, in which the lovers can be together and their desires can be openly expressed and reach fulfilment: it is the realm of oneness, truth and reality and can only be achieved fully upon the deaths of the lovers. The realm of Night, therefore, becomes also the realm of death: the only world in which Tristan and Isolde can be as one forever, and it is this realm that Tristan speaks of at the end of Act II ("Dem Land das Tristan meint, der Sonne Licht nicht scheint"). In Act III, Tristan rages against the daylight and frequently cries out for release from his desires (Sehnen). In this way, Wagner implicitly equates the realm of Day with Schopenhauer's concept of Phenomenon and the realm of Night with Schopenhauer's concept of Noumenon. While none of this is explicitly stated in the libretto, Tristan's comments on Day and Night in Acts II and III, as well as musical allusions to ''Tristan'' in ''
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' and ''
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival ...
'' make it very clear that this was, in fact, Wagner's intention.
The world-view of Schopenhauer dictates that the only way for man to achieve inner peace is to renounce his desires: a theme that Wagner explored fully in his last opera, ''Parsifal''. In fact Wagner even considered having the character of Parsifal meet Tristan during his sufferings in Act III, but later rejected the idea.
Opinion against Schopenhauer influence
Klaas A. Posthuma argues that neither Tristan nor Isolde tries for one moment to ignore feelings of love for the other or to overcome them. On the contrary, they yield to their feelings with all their hearts – but secretly. Such behavior has nothing whatever to do with Schopenhauer's claim. Another important point in Schopenhauer's philosophy is his view that happiness cannot be found with one woman only – his reason for never marrying. But for Tristan there is only one woman, Isolde, with Death as alternative. And this leads to the inevitable conclusion that it was not Schopenhauer and his doctrine that were responsible for creating of Wagner's sublime music drama but his own unfulfilled longing for the woman he met and loved during these years,
Mathilde Wesendonck.
Reactions to ''Tristan und Isolde''
Although ''Tristan und Isolde'' is now widely performed in major opera houses around the world, critical opinion of the opera was initially unfavourable. The 5 July 1865 edition of the ''
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
The ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung'' (''General music newspaper'') was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini (2008) has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time". It reviewed musical e ...
'' reported:
Eduard Hanslick's reaction in 1868 to the prelude to ''Tristan'' was that it "reminds one of the old Italian painting of a
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel." The first performance in London's
Drury Lane Theatre drew the following response from ''
The Era'' in 1882:
Mark Twain, on a visit to Germany, heard ''Tristan'' at Bayreuth and commented: "I know of some, and have heard of many, who could not sleep after it, but cried the night away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the one sane person in the community of the mad; sometimes I feel like the one blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in the college of the learned, and always, during service, I feel like a heretic in heaven."
Clara Schumann
Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...
wrote that ''Tristan und Isolde'' was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life".
With the passage of time, ''Tristan'' became more favourably regarded. In an interview shortly before his death,
Giuseppe Verdi said that he "stood in wonder and terror" before Wagner's ''Tristan''. In ''
The Perfect Wagnerite'', writer and satirist
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
writes that ''Tristan'' was "an astonishingly intense and faithful translation into music of the emotions which accompany the union of a pair of lovers" and described it as "a poem of destruction and death".
Richard Strauss, initially dismissive of ''Tristan,'' claimed that Wagner's music "would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of
tshideous discords." Later, however, Strauss became part of the
Bayreuth coterie and writing to
Cosima Wagner
Francesca Gaetana Cosima Wagner (née Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt and Franco-German romantic author Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German comp ...
in 1892 declared: "I have conducted my first ''Tristan''. It was the most wonderful day of my life." In 1935 he wrote to Joseph Gregor, one of his librettists, that ''Tristan und Isolde'' was "the end of all romanticism, as it brings into focus the longing of the entire 19th century."
The conductor
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the U ...
heard his first ''Tristan und Isolde'' in 1889 as a student:
Arnold Schoenberg referred to Wagner's technique of shifting chords in ''Tristan'' as "phenomena of incredible adaptability and nonindependence roaming, homeless, among the spheres of keys; spies reconnoitering weaknesses; to exploit them in order to create confusion, deserters for whom surrender of their own personality is an end in itself".
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
, who in his younger years was one of Wagner's staunchest allies, wrote that, for him, "''Tristan and Isolde'' is the real ''opus metaphysicum'' of all art ... insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and death ... it is overpowering in its simple grandeur". In a letter to his friend
Erwin Rohde
Erwin Rohde (; 9 October 1845 – 11 January 1898) was one of the great German classical scholars of the 19th century.
Rohde was born in Hamburg and was the son of a doctor. Outside of antiquarian circles, Rohde is known today chiefly for h ...
in October 1868, Nietzsche described his reaction to ''Tristan's'' prelude: "I simply cannot bring myself to remain critically aloof from this music; every nerve in me is atwitch, and it has been a long time since I had such a lasting sense of ecstasy as with this overture". Even after his break with Wagner, Nietzsche continued to consider ''Tristan'' a masterpiece: "Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as ''Tristan'' – I have sought in vain, in every art."
Marcel Proust, greatly influenced by Wagner, refers to ''Tristan und Isolde'' and its "inexhaustible repetitions" throughout his novel ''
In Search of Lost Time''. He describes the prelude theme as "linked to the future, to the reality of the human soul, of which it was one of the most special and distinctive ornaments."
Recordings
''Tristan und Isolde'' has a long recorded history and most of the major Wagner
conductors since the end of the First World War have had their interpretations captured on disc. The limitations of recording technology meant that until the 1930s it was difficult to record the entire opera, however recordings of excerpts or single acts exist going back to 1901, when excerpts of Tristan were captured on the
Mapleson Cylinders recorded during performances at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
.
In the years before World War II,
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian opera singer, who was the outstanding Wagnerian soprano of her era. Her triumphant debut in New York on 2 February 1935 is one of the legends of opera. Giulio Gatti-Casa ...
and
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior (20 March 1890 – 18 March 1973) was a Danish-American opera singer. He was the preeminent Richard Wagner, Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and has come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type. Late i ...
were considered to be the prime interpreters of the lead roles, and mono recordings exist of this pair in a number of live performances led by conductors such as
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...
,
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin "Fritz" Reiner (December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to ...
,
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky (also written as Artur Bodzansky) (16 December 1877 – 23 November 1939) was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner. He conducted Enrico Caruso's last performance at the Metropolitan Oper ...
and
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a ...
. Flagstad recorded the part commercially only near the end of her career in 1952, under
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler ( , , ; 25 January 188630 November 1954) was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. He was a major ...
for
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
, producing a set which is considered a classic recording.
Following the war, another classic recording is the 1952 performance at the
Bayreuth Festival with
Martha Mödl
Martha Mödl (22 March 1912, Nuremberg – 17 December 2001, Stuttgart) was a German soprano, and later a mezzo-soprano. She specialized in large dramatic roles such as Isolde, Brünnhilde, and particularly Kundry, and is considered, along with ...
and
Ramón Vinay
Ramón Vinay (August 31, 1911 – January 4, 1996) was a famous Chilean operatic tenor with a powerful, dramatic voice. He is probably best remembered for his appearances in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's tragic opera '' Otello''.
Biography
...
under
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan (; born Heribert Ritter von Karajan; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, wit ...
, which is noted for its strong, vivid characterizations and is now available as a live recording. In the 1960s, the soprano
Birgit Nilsson was considered the major Isolde interpreter, and she was often partnered with the Tristan of
Wolfgang Windgassen. Their performance at Bayreuth in 1966 under the baton of
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm (28 August 1894 – 14 August 1981) was an Austrian conductor. He was best known for his performances of the music of Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss.
Life and career
Education
Karl Böhm was born in Graz. T ...
was captured by
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
– a performance often hailed as one of the best ''Tristan'' recordings.
Karajan did not record the opera officially until 1971–72. Karajan's selection of a lighter soprano voice (
Helga Dernesch) as Isolde, paired with an extremely intense
Jon Vickers
Jonathan Stewart Vickers, (October 29, 1926 – July 10, 2015), known professionally as Jon Vickers, was a Canadian heldentenor.
Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a ...
and the unusual balance between orchestra and singers favoured by Karajan was controversial. In the 1980s recordings by conductors such as
Carlos Kleiber
Carlos Luis Bonifacio Kleiber (3 July 1930 – 13 July 2004) was an Austrian conductor who is widely regarded as among the greatest conductors of all time.
Early life
Kleiber was born as Karl Ludwig Bonifacius Kleiber in Berlin in 1930, the ...
,
Reginald Goodall
Sir Reginald Goodall (13 July 1901 – 5 May 1990) was an English conductor and singing coach noted for his performances of the operas of Richard Wagner and for conducting the premieres of several operas by Benjamin Britten.
Early life
Goodall ...
, and
Leonard Bernstein were mostly considered to be important for the interpretation of the conductor, rather than that of the lead performers. The set by Kleiber is notable as Isolde was sung by the famous Mozartian soprano
Margaret Price
Dame Margaret Berenice Price (13 April 194128 January 2011) was a Welsh soprano.
Early years
Price was born in Blackwood, near Caerphilly in South Wales. Born with deformed legs, she underwent surgery at age four and suffered pain in he ...
, who never sang the role of Isolde on stage. The same is true for
Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French ...
, who sang the role of Tristan to critical acclaim in the 2005 EMI release under the baton of
Antonio Pappano
Sir Antonio Pappano (born 30 December 1959) is an English-Italian conductor and pianist. He is currently music director of the Royal Opera House and of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He is scheduled to become chief c ...
despite never having sung the role on stage. In the last ten years acclaimed sets include a studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic by
Daniel Barenboim and a live set from the
Vienna Staatsoper
The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Si ...
led by
Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022, and a regular conductor at the Bayreuth Fe ...
.
There are several DVD productions of the opera including
Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich (4 August 1930 in Naumburg, Germany – 12 December 2000 in Berlin, Germany) was a German opera and theatre director.
He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in (East) Berlin, where he w ...
's production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin featuring the seasoned Wagnerians
René Kollo
René Kollo (born 20 November 1937) is a German operatic tenor, especially known for his Wagnerian Heldentenor roles. He also performed a wide variety of operas and operettas, and made several recordings.
Biography
Born René Kollodzieyski in ...
and Dame
Gwyneth Jones in the title roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a Metropolitan Opera performance featuring
Jane Eaglen
Jane Eaglen (born 4 April 1960) is an English soprano particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Wagner and the title roles in Bellini's '' Norma'' and Puccini's '' Turandot''.
Background
Jane Eaglen was born 4 April ...
and
Ben Heppner, conducted by
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine (; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 1 ...
, in a production staged by
Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn (born 31 October 1935 in Leipzig) is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel.
Career
Dieter Dorn studied at the Thea ...
and a DVD of the 1993 Bayreuth Festival production with conductor Daniel Barenboim and featuring
Waltraud Meier
Waltraud Meier (born 9 January 1956) is a German dramatic soprano and mezzo-soprano singer. She is particularly known for her Wagnerian roles as Kundry, Isolde, Ortrud, Venus, Fricka, and Sieglinde, but has also had success in the French and ...
as Isolde and
Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged by
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller (; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdr ...
. More recently Barenboim's production at
La Scala, Milan, in the production by
Patrice Chéreau
Patrice Chéreau (; 2 November 1944 – 7 October 2013) was a French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer. In France he is best known for his work for the theatre, internationally for his films '' La Reine Margot'' and ...
has also been issued on DVD. There is also a technically flawed, but historically important video recording with
Birgit Nilsson and
Jon Vickers
Jonathan Stewart Vickers, (October 29, 1926 – July 10, 2015), known professionally as Jon Vickers, was a Canadian heldentenor.
Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a ...
from a 1973 live performance at the
Théâtre antique d'Orange, conducted by
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm (28 August 1894 – 14 August 1981) was an Austrian conductor. He was best known for his performances of the music of Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss.
Life and career
Education
Karl Böhm was born in Graz. T ...
.
In a world first, the British opera house
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hun ...
made a full digital video download of the opera available for purchase online in 2009. The performance stars
Robert Gambill as Tristan,
Nina Stemme
Nina Maria Stemme (born Nina Maria Thöldte on 11 May 1963) is a Swedish dramatic soprano opera singer.
Stemme "is regarded by today's opera fans as our era's greatest Wagnerian soprano". In 2010, Michael Kimmelman wrote of one of Stemme's perf ...
as Isolde,
Katarina Karnéus
Katarina Esmé Marie Karnéus (born 26 November 1965) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano opera singer, winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, active on many of the opera world's major stages such as the Metropolitan Opera and the Pa ...
as Brangäne,
Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal,
René Pape as King Marke, and
Stephen Gadd
Stephen Gadd (born 1964 in Berkshire, South East England) is an English operatic baritone.
He graduated in Engineering from St. John's College, Cambridge and then studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, under Patrick McGuigan. He was a ...
as Melot, with
Jiří Bělohlávek
Jiří Bělohlávek, (; 24 February 1946 – 31 May 2017) was a Czech conductor. He was a leading interpreter of Czech classical music, and became chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1990, a role he would serve on two occasio ...
as the conductor, and was recorded on 1 and 6 August 2007.
A performance typically lasts approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes.
Concert extracts and arrangements
The ''Prelude and Liebestod'' is a concert version of the overture and Isolde's Act III aria, "Mild und leise". The arrangement was by Wagner himself, and it was first performed in 1862, several years before the premiere of the complete opera in 1865. The ''Liebestod'' can be performed either in a purely orchestral version, or with a soprano singing Isolde's vision of Tristan resurrected.
However, the very first time the prelude and its opening "Tristan chord" was heard publicly was on 12 March 1859, when it was performed at the Sophieninselsaal in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
, in a charity concert in aid of poor medical students, conducted by
Hans von Bülow
Freiherr Hans Guido von Bülow (8 January 1830 – 12 February 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. As one of the most distinguished conductors of the 19th century, his activity was critical for es ...
, who provided his own concert ending for the occasion. Wagner had authorised such an ending, but did not like what Bülow had done with it and later wrote his own. Wagner then included the prelude in his own three concerts at the Paris
Théâtre-Italien in January–February 1860.
Wagner called the prelude the "
Liebestod
"" ( German for "love death") is the title of the final, dramatic music from the 1859 opera ' by Richard Wagner. It is the climactic end of the opera, as Isolde sings over Tristan's dead body.
The music is often used in film and television produ ...
" (Love-death) while Isolde's final aria "Mild und leise" he called the "Verklärung" (
Transfiguration). In 1867 his father-in-law
Franz Liszt made
a piano transcription of "Mild und leise", which he called "Liebestod" (S.447); he prefaced his score with a four-bar motto from the love duet from Act II, which in the opera is sung to the words "sehnend verlangter Liebestod". Liszt's transcription became well known throughout Europe well before Wagner's opera reached most places, and it is Liszt's title for the final scene that persists. The transcription was revised in 1875.
Wagner wrote a concert ending for the Act II Love Duet for a planned 1862 concert performance that did not eventuate. The music was lost until 1950, then passed into private hands, before coming to the attention of
Daniel Barenboim, who passed it on to Sir
Antonio Pappano
Sir Antonio Pappano (born 30 December 1959) is an English-Italian conductor and pianist. He is currently music director of the Royal Opera House and of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He is scheduled to become chief c ...
. The first recording of the Love Duet with the concert ending was made in 2000, with
Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French ...
,
Deborah Voigt
Deborah Voigt (born August 4, 1960) is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Biography and career
Early life and education
Debbie Joy Voigt was born into a religious Southern Baptist family ...
and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Pappano.
Another composer to rework material from ''Tristan'' was
Emmanuel Chabrier in his humorous ''
Souvenirs de Munich – quadrilles on themes from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde''. These were augmented and orchestrated by
Markus Lehmann in 1988.
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appear ...
made a series of purely orchestral "Symphonic Syntheses" of Wagner's operas during his time as conductor of the
Philadelphia Orchestra, bringing to concert audiences of the 1920s and '30s music they might not otherwise have heard. He made a 'long version' of music from ''Tristan and Isolde'' which consisted mainly of the Act I prelude, the from Act II and the from Act III. A shorter version of music from the 2nd and 3rd acts was called "Love Music from ''Tristan and Isolde''". He made recordings of both versions on 78s and again on LP.
The British composer
Ronald Stevenson
Ronald James Stevenson (6 March 1928 – 28 March 2015) was a Scottish composer, pianist, and writer about music.
Biography
The son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother, Stevenson was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1928. He studied at the ...
has made two arrangements based on the opera. The first is ''The Fugue on the Shepherd's Air from Tristan und Isolde'' from 1999. Its composition was inspired by a lecture given by the Wagner biographer and chair of the Wagner Society of Scotland,
Derek Watson, to whom the piece is dedicated. In a contrapuntal climax, Stevenson combines both the Shepherd's Air and Isolde's Liebestod. The second is a setting, for voices and organ, of lines from
Tom Hubbard's 1998 narrative poem in Scots, 'Isolde's Luve-Daith', the premiere of which took place in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh in March 2003.
Other works based on the opera include:
*
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
, ''
Un Chien Andalou
''Un Chien Andalou'' (, ''An Andalusian Dog'') is a 1929 French silent short film directed by Luis Buñuel, and written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Buñuel's first film, it was initially released in a limited capacity at Studio des Ursuline ...
'', 1929 film score, Opera Frankfurt, director Carl Bamberger
*
Clément Doucet's piano rags ''Isoldina'' and ''Wagneria''.
*
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...
's ''Tristan: Préludes für Klavier, Tonbänder und Orchester'' (1973);
* a 'symphonic compilation' ''Tristan und Isolde: an orchestral passion'' (1994) by
Henk de Vlieger;
* a six-minute paraphrase by
Enjott Schneider, ''Der Minuten-Tristan'' (1996), originally written for 12 pianists at six pianos;
* An arrangement of "Prelude und Liebestod" for string quartet and accordion, written for the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (2021) by
Max Knigge
* the ''Nachtstück'' (1980–83) for
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
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, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
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*Violin family ...
and chamber orchestra by
Volker David Kirchner
*
Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman (né Wachsmann; December 24, 1906February 24, 1967) was a German-born composer and conductor of Jewish descent, known primarily for his work in the film music genre. His film scores include ''Bride of Frankenstein'', ''Rebecca'', ' ...
, Fantasy based on themes from the opera, for violin and orchestra
In popular culture
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...
's pen and ink drawing ''The Wagnerites'' shows highly coiffured men and women attending a performance of ''Tristan und Isolde''. The drawing was first published in the Yellow Book, vol III
ctober 1894 According to Stephen Calloway, 'Beardsley had an obsessive interest in Wagner, and avidly attended the London performances of the works. This depiction of the Wagnerian audience rather than the action of the opera identified by the fallen programme as Tristan and Isolde, is one of the greatest masterpieces of Beardsley's manière noire. Sickert claimed to have warned him that the drawings in which the area of black exceeded that of white paper were bound to fail artistically, and to have 'convinced him' of the truth of this aesthetic rule. Fortunately Beardsley seems to have ignored the advice.' The drawing is in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum.
The following year Beardsley produced a print depicting a stylised image of a woman, standing in front of a half length yellow curtain, wearing an ornate flowered hat and holding a large drinking vessel to her mouth. In the bottom right-hand corner is the word ISOLDE. ''Isolde'' was first reproduced in colour lithography (red, green, grey and black) as a supplement to The Studio, October 1895. The drawing (in yellow, black and white) is in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum.
The opera forms the backdrop of
Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza (31 December 1878 – 19 February 1937) was a Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer.
He wrote stories which, in their jungle settings, used the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of m ...
's tale of love lost, (The Death of Isolde) from his collection ' (1917).
In
Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film ''
The Birds'', a recording of ''Tristan'' is prominently displayed in the scene in which Annie (
Suzanne Pleshette) resignedly reveals to Melanie (
Tippi Hedren
Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American actress, animal rights activist, and former fashion model.
A successful fashion model who appeared on the front covers of ''Life'' and '' Glamour'' magazines, among others, Hed ...
) her unrequited love for Mitch. For
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...
, the visual inclusion of the LP cover, with the opera's 'theme of self-immolation through doomed love' signifies that Annie is a forlorn romantic.
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier ('' né'' Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish filmmaker, actor, and lyricist. Having garnered a reputation as a highly ambitious, polarizing filmmaker, he has been the subject of several controversies: Cannes, in addition to nomina ...
's 2011 film ''
Melancholia
Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly d ...
'' prominently features music from the prelude.
The famous Liebestod is used in the soundtrack of the third episode of the first season of
The Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
.
References
Notes
Sources
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Volume 1an
2at
Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
)
* (Includes libretto, English translation by
Andrew Porter, introduction by John Luke Rose, and commentaries.)
Further reading
*
Borchmeyer, Dieter (2003). ''Drama and the World of Richard Wagner''. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
* Chafe, Eric (2005). ''The Tragic and the Ecstatic: The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
* Fabinger, Carollina (2009). ''Tristano e Isotta. Una piccola storia sul destino e sull'amore eterno'' (illustrated version, in Italian). Milan: Nuages. .
*
*
*
Gut, Serge (2014), ''Tristan et Isolde''. Paris: Fayard. .
* May, Thomas (2004). ''Decoding Wagner.'' Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press. .
*
Scruton, Roger (2004). ''Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
* Wagner, Richard;
Mottl, Felix, editor (1911 or slightly later). ''Tristan und Isolde'' (full score). Leipzig: C. F. Peters. Reprint by Dover (1973): .
External links
Bilingual side by side German English LibrettoAlso available in Italian
Wagner Operas A comprehensive website featuring photographs of productions, recordings, librettos, and sound files.
Richard Wagner – ''Tristan und Isolde'' A gallery of historic postcards with motifs from Richard Wagner's operas.
Recordings reviewed by Geoffrey Riggs.
Wagner's Tristan and IsoldeBBC / Metropolitan Opera synopsis
Comprehensive website containing source material and musical motives
Seattle Opera PerformanceSeattle Opera link
Free Online opera guide on ''Tristan und Isolde'' An opera portrait with synopsis, commentary, music analysis, anecdotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tristan Und Isolde
1865 operas
German-language operas
Tristan and Iseult
Music dramas
Operas by Richard Wagner
Libretti by Richard Wagner
Operas
Operas set in France
Operas set in the British Isles
Arthurian operas