Tristan und Isolde

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Tristan und Isolde
Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater
, Munich

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde),

Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow
conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "eine Handlung" (literally a drama, a plot, or an action).

Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired by the philosophy of

harmonic suspension
.

The opera was enormously influential among Western classical composers and provided direct inspiration to composers such as

symbolist poets of the late 19th century and early 20th century.[2]

The autograph manuscript of the opera is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

Composition history

Photo of Wagner in Brussels, 1860

Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the

Tristan and Isolde
.

The re-discovery of

medieval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's version of Tristan [de], the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, 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. 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.[4]

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.[5]

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."[6]

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.[7]

Painting of Mathilde Wesendonck (1850) by Karl Ferdinand Sohn

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

muse, Mathilde, and his future mistress (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. 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.[9] But Wagner resolved to write Tristan only after he had secured a publishing deal with the Leipzig-based firm Breitkopf & Härtel, 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.[10]

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.[11] 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.

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.[12]

Wagner finished the second act of Tristan during his eight-month exile in Venice, where he lived in the Palazzo Giustinian. In March 1859, fearing extradition to Saxony, where he was still considered a fugitive, 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

Paris Opéra, Wagner offered the work to the Karlsruhe
opera in 1861.

Photo of Hans von Bülow, who conducted the premiere

When Wagner visited the

Vienna Court Opera 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

hoarseness. 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 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.[14]

Performance history

Drawing for a libretto (undated)

The next production of Tristan was in Weimar 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, London in 1882; Tristan was performed by Hermann Winkelmann, who later that year sang the title role of Parsifal 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 in December 1886, conducted by Anton Seidl.

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.[15] 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, is of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony as it resolves to another dissonant chord:[16]

{ \new PianoStaff << \new Staff << \new Voice \relative c'' { \clef treble \key a \minor \time 6/8 \voiceOne \partial8 b8\rest R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red gis4.->(~ gis4 a8 ais8-> b4~ b8) \oneVoice r r } \new Voice \relative c' { \override DynamicLineSpanner.staff-padding = #4.5 \once \override DynamicText.X-offset = #-5 \voiceTwo \partial8 a\pp( f'4.~\< f4 e8 \once \override NoteHead.color = #red dis2.)(\> d!4.)~\p d8 } >> \new Staff << \relative c { \clef bass \key a \minor \time 6/8 \partial8 r8 R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red <f b>2.( <e gis>4.)~ <e gis>8 r r } >> >> }

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

cadences, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical resolution.[17] 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" ("Love-Death"), during which the musical resolution (at "In des Welt-Atems wehendem All") coincides with the moment of Isolde's death.[18]

The tonality of Tristan was to prove immensely influential in western Classical music. Wagner's use of musical colour also influenced the development of

Surrealist 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 'avec une grande emotion'. 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

Roles, voice types, premiere cast
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 10 June 1865
Conductor: Hans von Bülow
Tristan, a Breton nobleman, adopted heir of Marke tenor Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Isolde, an Irish princess betrothed to Marke soprano Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Brangäne, Isolde's maid soprano[19] Anna Deinet
Kurwenal, Tristan's servant baritone Anton Mitterwurzer
Marke, King of Cornwall bass Ludwig Zottmayr
Melot, a courtier, Tristan's friend tenor (or baritone)[20] Karl Samuel Heinrich
A shepherd tenor Karl Simons
A steersman baritone Peter Hartmann
A young sailor tenor
Sailors, knights, and esquires

Instrumentation

Tristan und Isolde is scored for the following instruments:

on-stage

Synopsis

Prelude

Act 1

Tristan und Isolde by Ferdinand Leeke

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 ("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 in order to save Isolde from herself.

Act 2

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 explains that he cannot reveal the reason for his betrayal to the King, as he believes the King wouldn't understand. He then turns to Isolde, who agrees to accompany him once again into the realm of night. Tristan further reveals that Melot has also fallen in love with Isolde. A fight ensues between Melot and Tristan, but at a critical moment, Tristan deliberately throws his sword aside, allowing Melot to stab him.

Act 3

Angelo Quaglio
of the set in act 3 for the premiere production

Kurwenal has brought Tristan home to his castle at Kareol in Brittany. 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 describing her vision of Tristan risen again (the "Liebestod", "love death"), dies ("Mild und leise wie er lächelt").

Influence of Schopenhauer

Portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer (1815) by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl [de]

Wagner's friend the poet Georg Herwegh introduced him in late 1854 to the work of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.[21] The composer was immediately struck by the philosophical ideas to be found in The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung), and the similarities between the two men's world-views became clear.[22]

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, while the unknowable reality is Noumenon: concepts originally posited by Kant. 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.[23] 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").[24] 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.[25] 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 make it very clear that this was, in fact, Wagner's intention. [citation needed]

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.[26]

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.[27]

Reactions

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 reported:

Not to mince words, it is the glorification of sensual pleasure, tricked out with every titillating device, it is unremitting materialism, according to which human beings have no higher destiny than, after living the life of turtle doves, 'to vanish in sweet odours, like a breath'. In the service of this end, music has been enslaved to the word; the most ideal of the Muses has been made to grind the colours for indecent paintings... (Wagner) makes sensuality itself the true subject of his drama.... We think that the stage presentation of the poem Tristan und Isolde amounts to an act of indecency. Wagner does not show us the life of heroes of Nordic sagas which would edify and strengthen the spirit of his German audiences. What he does present is the ruination of the life of heroes through sensuality.[28]

martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel."[29][30] The first performance in London's Drury Lane Theatre drew the following response from The Era
in 1882:

We cannot refrain from making a protest against the worship of animal passion which is so striking a feature in the late works of Wagner. We grant there is nothing so repulsive in Tristan as in Die Walküre, but the system is the same. The passion is unholy in itself and its representation is impure, and for those reasons we rejoice in believing that such works will not become popular. If they did we are certain their tendency would be mischievous, and there is, therefore, some cause for congratulation in the fact that Wagner's music, in spite of all its wondrous skill and power, repels a greater number than it fascinates.[31]

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."[32]

Clara Schumann wrote that Tristan und Isolde was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life".[33]

With the passage of time, Tristan became more favourably regarded. In an interview shortly before his death,

The Perfect Wagnerite, the writer and satirist George Bernard Shaw 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 [its] hideous discords." Later, however, Strauss became part of the Bayreuth coterie and writing to Cosima Wagner 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."[35]

The conductor Bruno Walter heard his first Tristan und Isolde in 1889 as a student:

So there I sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Opera House, and from the first sound of the cellos my heart contracted spasmodically.... Never before has my soul been deluged with such floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by such yearning and sublime bliss... A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and I wanted to become his prophet.[36]

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".[citation needed]

Friedrich Nietzsche, 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 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."[37]

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."[38][39]

Recordings

Main article: Tristan und Isolde discography
Photo from a 1917 production

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.[40]

In the years before World War II, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior 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, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky and Erich Leinsdorf. Flagstad recorded the part commercially only near the end of her career in 1952, under Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, producing a set which is considered a classic recording.[41]

Following the war, another classic recording is the 1952 performance at the Bayreuth Festival with Martha Mödl and Ramón Vinay under Herbert von Karajan, 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 was captured by Deutsche Grammophon – a performance often hailed as one of the best Tristan recordings.[42]

Karajan did not record the opera officially until 1971–72. Karajan's selection of a lighter soprano voice (

Vienna Staatsoper led by Christian Thielemann
.

There are several DVD productions of the opera including

Théâtre antique d'Orange, conducted by Karl Böhm
.

In a world first, the British opera house Glyndebourne made a full digital video download of the opera available for purchase online in 2009. The performance stars Robert Gambill as Tristan, Nina Stemme as Isolde, Katarina Karnéus as Brangäne, Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal, René Pape as King Marke, and Stephen Gadd as Melot, with Jiří Bělohlávek as the conductor, and was recorded on 1 and 6 August 2007.[44]

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, in a charity concert in aid of poor medical students, conducted by Hans von Bülow, 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.[45][46] Wagner then included the prelude in his own three concerts at the Paris Théâtre-Italien in January–February 1860.[47]

Wagner called the prelude the "

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.[48]

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. The first recording of the Love Duet with the concert ending was made in 2000, with Plácido Domingo, Deborah Voigt and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Pappano.[49]

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.[50] These were augmented and orchestrated by Markus Lehmann in 1988.[51] Leopold Stokowski 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 Liebesnacht from Act II and the Liebestod 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 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.[52] The second is a setting, for voices and organ, of lines from Tom Hubbard's 1998 narrative poem in Scots, 'Isolde's Luve-Daith',[53] the premiere of which took place in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh in March 2003.[54]

Other works based on the opera include:

  • Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou, 1929 film score, Opera Frankfurt, director Carl Bamberger
  • Clément Doucet's piano rags Isoldina and Wagneria.
  • Hans Werner Henze'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[55]
  • the Nachtstück (1980–83) for viola and chamber orchestra by Volker David Kirchner[56]
  • Franz Waxman, Fantasy based on themes from the opera, for violin and orchestra

In popular culture

The Wagnerites

Aubrey Beardsley'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 [October 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.'[57] The drawing is in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum.[58]

Isolde

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.[59]

The opera forms the backdrop of Horacio Quiroga's tale of love lost, "La muerte de Isolda" [es] (The Death of Isolde) from his collection Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte [es] (1917).[60][61]

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) her unrequited love for Mitch. For Camille Paglia, 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.[62]

Dalit Warshaw's concerto for piano and orchestra, Conjuring Tristan, draws on the opera's leitmotifs to recast the narrative and dramatic events of Thomas Mann's Tristan through Wagner's music.[63] Warshaw was inspired by developments in Mann's mediation of the Tristan legend which see a former pianist's love for music rekindled by the opera's score.

Lars von Trier's 2011 film Melancholia prominently features music from the prelude.[64]

The famous Liebestod is used in the soundtrack of the third episode of the first season of The Crown.

References

Notes

  1. ^ Millington 1992, p. 301.
  2. ^ The Richard Wagner Cult, Degeneration (1892), translated by G.l. Mosse, New York, 1968, pp. 171–213.
  3. ^ For a nuanced view of the connection between the Wesendonck affair and Tristan und Isolde see Andreas Dorschel, "Reflex, Vision, Gegenbild. Konstellationen zwischen Kunst und Leben", in: Weimarer Beiträge 64 (2018), no. 2, p. 286–298; idem, "Life′s Work. Wagner′s Tristan and the Critique of Biographism", in: Life as an Aesthetic Idea of Music, ed. Manos Perrakis, Vienna/London/New York: Universal Edition 2019, p. 63–78.
  4. ^ Classen 2003.
  5. ^ Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617a.
  6. ^ Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617b.
  7. ^ Gutman 1990, p. 163.
  8. ^ Millington 1992, p. 300.
  9. ^ Millington 1992, p. 318.
  10. ^ Deathridge 2008, ch. "Public and Private Life", pp. 117–132.
  11. ^ Gutman 1990, pp. 180–182.
  12. ^ Gutman 1990, p. 182.
  13. ^ a b Peter Bassett, "Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde". Retrieved 25 September 2016 [full citation needed]
  14. ^ Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., Vol. IX, p. 37
  15. ^ Rose, John Luke. "A Landmark in Musical History" in Wagner 1981, p. 15.
  16. ^ Magee 2001, p. 208.
  17. ^ Magee 1983, p. 356.
  18. ^ Millington 1992, p. 252.
  19. ^ The score calls for a soprano, and Brangäne was sung by one in the original production; however, the role has been generally sung by a mezzo-soprano (Jander, Steane & Forbes 1992, vol. 3, p. 372). Almost all available recordings feature a mezzo-soprano as Brangäne (see Tristan und Isolde discography).
  20. ^ The score calls for a tenor in the role of Melot; however, the part is frequently assigned to a baritone (examples: Joachim Sattler (Elmendorff, 1928), Bernd Weikl (1972, von Karajan), Brian Davis (1999, Levine), Stephen Gaertner (2008, Barenboim), and others) [citation needed]
  21. ^ Gregor-Dellin 1983, p. 256.
  22. ^ Magee 2001, p. 128.
  23. ^ Magee 2001, pp. 217–221.
  24. ^ Magee 2001, p. 221.
  25. ^ Magee 2001, p. 218.
  26. ^ Gregor-Dellin 1983, p. 258.
  27. ^ Posthuma, Klaas A. (1988). Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (CD-Text). EMI.
  28. ^ Barth, Mack & Voss 1975, p. 208.
  29. ^ "Sunday Morning – The Critics Part 3: Eduard Hanslick −06/11/2005". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  30. ^ "San Francisco Symphony – Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde". San Francisco Symphony. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  31. ^ Mander R. & Mitchenson J. (W.H. Allen, London, 1977), The Wagner Companion, p. 120.
  32. ^ Twain, Mark (6 December 1891). "Mark Twain at Bayreuth". Chicago Daily Tribune. See "At the Shrine of St. Wagner". twainquotes.com. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
  33. ^ Letter from Clara Schumann to Johannes Brahms, 23 October 1875; via Schumann-Brief-Datenbank / Neue Robert-Schumann-Gesamtausgabe (in German)
  34. ^ Millington 1992, p. 382.
  35. ^ Kennedy, Michael (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma, p. 67. Google Books
  36. ISBN 978-0-307-76046-3
    .
  37. ^ Nietzsche 1979, p. 61.
  38. ^ Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time[page needed]
  39. ^ Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Proust as Musician. Cambridge, 1989[page needed]
  40. ^ Brown, Principal Selections.
  41. ^ Holloway 1982, p. 367.
  42. ^ Blyth 1992, p. 65.
  43. ^ "On-line catalogue entry Tristan und Isolde DVD conducted by James Levine". Deutsche Grammophon. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  44. ^ "Glyndebourne – Tristan und Isolde – Download". glyndebourne.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  45. ^ Kenneth Birkin, Hans von Bülow: A Life for Music, p. 121
  46. ^ "Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Program Notes" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2013-03-30.
  47. ISBN 978-1-108-00771-9
    .
  48. ^ Charles Suttoni, Introduction, Franz Liszt: Complete Piano Transcriptions from Wagner's Operas, Dover Publications
  49. ^ ABC Radio 24 Hours, February 2001, p. 113
  50. ^ Payne, Anthony (12 February 1994). "Greatest of late starters: Anthony Payne feasts on Chabrier". The Independent. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  51. ^ Schott Aktuell Archived 14 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, p. 11, accessed 3 March 2012
  52. ^ Scott, Jonathan (2001). 'Sleeve notes' for Bridgewater Hall Organ (ASC CS CD42 ed.). ASC Records.
  53. ISBN 0-86142-095-0
    .
  54. ^ Davidson, Lindsay. "Dr Tom Hubbard". Driving piping forward. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  55. ^ live registrationKnigge, Max, Vorspiel & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde arranged for string quartet & accordion
  56. ^ Schott Aktuell Archived 14 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, pp. 10–12, accessed 3 March 2012
  57. ^ Calloway, Stephen (1998). Aubrey Beardsley'. London: V & A Publications. p. 103.
  58. ^ "The Wagnerites". Victoria and Albert Museum. 1894. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  59. ^ "Isolde". Victoria and Albert Museum. 1899. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  60. OCLC 1282638004.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  61. ISBN 978-0-14-026631-3
    .
  62. ISBN 0-85170-651-7
    .
  63. ^ Kaczmarczyk, Jeffrey (2015-01-31). "Many lovely moments in Grand Rapids Symphony's evening of music by Wagner". mlive. Retrieved 2023-03-06.
  64. ISBN 978-3-7705-5686-1
    .

Sources

Further reading

External links

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