Richard wagner tristan och isolde

Opera bygd Richard Wagner

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, fryst vatten an musikdrama in three acts bygd Richard Wagner to a German libretto bygd the composer, loosely based on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult bygd Gottfried von Strassburg.

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 conducting.

Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired bygd the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as bygd his relationship with his museMathilde Wesendonck. Spiritual influences are also noted, ranging from mysticism, to Hinduism and Buddhism.

Widely acknowledged as one of the supreme achievements of Western music, Tristan was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and harmonic suspension.^[1]

The musikdrama was enormously influential among Western classical composers and provided direkt inspiration to composers such as Anton efternamn, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alban kulle, Arnold Schoenberg, and Benjamin Britten.

Other composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky formulated their styles in contrast to Wagner's musical legacy.^[2] Many see Tristan as a milestone on the move away from common practice harmony and tonality and suggest that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.

Composition history

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Wagner was forced to abandon his position as dirigent of the tysk stad musikdrama in 1849, as there was a warrant posted for his fängelse for his participation in the unsuccessful May Revolution.

He left his wife, Minna, in tysk stad, and fled to 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.^[3] Though Wagner was working on his epic Der fingerprydnad des Nibelungen, he funnen himself intrigued bygd the legend of Tristan and Isolde.

The re-discovery of medieval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's utgåva 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 fryst vatten a quintessential romance of the mittpunkt Ages and the Renaissance.

Several versions of the story exist, the earliest dating to the mittpunkt of the 12th century. Gottfried's utgåva, 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 inom felt convinced it should stand out in djärv relief, regardless of minor details.

This influence, tillsammans with his upptäckt of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created bygd Schopenhauer, which was ansträngande 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 månad 1854):

Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love inom shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the gods, love shall, for once, find utter repletion.

inom 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 inom shall cover myself over – to die.

By the end of 1854, Wagner had sketched out all three acts of an musikdrama on the Tristan theme, based on Gottfried von Strassburg's telling of the story.

While the earliest extant sketches date from månad 1856, it was not until August 1857 that Wagner began devoting his attention entirely to the musikdrama, putting aside the composition of Siegfried to do so. On 20 August he began the prose sketch for the musikdrama, and the libretto (or poem, as Wagner preferred to call it) was completed bygd 18 September.

Wagner, at this time, had moved into a cottage built in the grounds of Wesendonck's hus, where, during his work on Tristan und Isolde, he became passionately involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether or not this relationship was platonic 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, 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 fem of Mathilde's poems to music known today as the Wesendonck Lieder. This was an unusual move bygd 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 duett 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, 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.

After enduring much misery, Wagner persuaded Minna, who had a heart condition, to rest at a kurort 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 klar the air, and on 17 August, Wagner was forced to leave both Minna and Mathilde and move to Venice.

Wagner would later describe his gods days in Zurich as "a veritable Hell". Minna wrote to Mathilde before avfärd 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.

In March 1859, fearing extradition to Saxony, where he was still considered a fugitive, Wagner moved to Lucerne where he composed the gods act, completing it in August 1859.

Premiere

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Tristan und Isolde proved to be a difficult musikdrama to scen, and Wagner considered various possibilities for the venue. In 1857 he was invited bygd a representative of Pedro II, kejsare of Brazil, to scen his operas in Rio dem Janeiro (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 kejsare bound copies of his earlier operas in expression of his interest, but ingenting more came of the plan.^[13] He then proposed that the premiere take place in Strasbourg, following interest in the project shown bygd the Grand Duchess of Baden. igen, the project failed to eventuate.^[13] His thoughts then turned to Paris, the centre of the operatic world in the mittpunkt of the 19th century.

However, after a disastrous staging of Tannhäuser at the Paris Opéra, Wagner offered the work to the Karlsruhe musikdrama in 1861.

When Wagner visited the Vienna Court musikdrama to rehearse possible singers for this production, the management at Vienna suggested staging the musikdrama 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 scen the musikdrama in tysk stad, Weimar and Prague failed. Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, Tristan und Isolde was unable to be staged in Vienna, winning the musikdrama a reputation as unperformable.

It was only after King Ludwig II of Bavaria 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 funnen to mount the premiere of Tristan und Isolde.

Hans von Bülow 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. 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 fyra 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 namn Keilberth in 1968. Both dock died after collapsing while conducting the second act of the opera.) Malvina sank into a deep nedstämdhet over her husband's death, and never sang igen, although she lived for another 38 years.

For some years thereafter, the only performers of the roles were another husband–wife grupp, Heinrich Vogl and Therese Vogl.^[14]

Performance history

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The next production of Tristan was in Weimar in 1874. Wagner himself supervised another production of Tristan in Berlin in March 1876, but the musikdrama 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 bygd Hermann Winkelmann, who later that year sang the title role of Parsifal at Bayreuth. It was conducted bygd 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 storstads- musikdrama in månad 1886, conducted bygd Anton Seidl.

Significance in the development of Western music

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The score of Tristan und Isolde has often been cited as a landmark in the development of Western music.^[15] Throughout the musikdrama, Wagner uses a remarkable range of orchestral colour, harmony, and polyphony, doing so with a freedom rarely funnen in his earlier operas.

The first chord in the del av helhet, the Tristan chord, fryst vatten of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony as it resolves to another dissonant chord:

The musikdrama fryst vatten noted for its numerous expansions of harmonic practice; for instance, one significant nyhet fryst vatten the frequent use of two consecutive chords containing tritones (diminished fifth or augmented fourth), neither of which fryst vatten a diminished seventh chord (F–B, dryckesställe 2; E–A♯, dryckesställe 3).

Tristan und Isolde fryst vatten also notable for its use of harmonic suspension – a device used bygd a composer to create musical tension bygd exposing the listener to a series of prolonged unfinished cadences, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical upplösning. While suspension fryst vatten 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 musikdrama, Wagner primes the audience for a musical climax with a series of chords building in tension – only to deliberately defer the anticipated upplösning. One particular example of this technique occurs at the end of the love duett 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 upplösning destroyed bygd the dissonant interruption of Kurwenal ("Rette Dich, Tristan!").

upplösning of the music does not occur until the very end of the musikdrama, after Isolde sings the closing excerpt commonly referred to as the "Liebestod" ("Love-Death"), after which she sinks down, "as if transfigured", dead onto Tristan's body.

The tonality of Tristan was to prove immensely influential in western Classical music.

Wagner's use of musical colour also influenced the development of bio music. Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Vertigo, fryst vatten heavily reminiscerande of the Liebestod, most evidently in the resurrection en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film. The Liebestod was incorporated in Luis Buñuel's Surrealist rulle L'Age d'Or.

Not all composers, however, reacted favourably: Claude Debussy's piano del av helhet "Golliwog's Cakewalk" mockingly quotes the opening of the musikdrama in a distorted struktur, instructing the del to be played 'avec une grande emotion'. However, Debussy was highly influenced bygd Wagner and was particularly fond of Tristan. Frequent moments of Tristan-inspired tonality mark Debussy's early compositions.

Roles

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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 herde	tenor	Karl Simons
A steersman	baritone	Peter Hartmann
A ung sailor	tenor
Sailors, knights, and esquires

Instrumentation

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Tristan und Isolde fryst vatten scored for the following instruments:

• 3 flutes (one doubles piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons
• 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass tuba
• timpani, cymbals, triangle
• harp
• 1st and 2nd violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses (Die Streichinstrumente sind vorzüglich gut und kraftfull zu besetzen. [The string instruments are to be exquisitely cast in quantity and quality.])

on-stage

Synopsis

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Act 1

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Isolde, promised to King Marke in marriage, and her en kvinnlig tjänare eller medhjälpare, Brangäne, are quartered aboard Tristan's fartyg being transported to the king's lands in Cornwall.

The musikdrama opens with the röst of a ung 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 fartyg, 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 fryst vatten at the helm. His henchman, Kurwenal, answers more brusquely, saying that Isolde fryst vatten in no position to command Tristan and reminds Brangäne that Isolde's previous fiancé, Morold, was killed bygd Tristan ("Herr Morold zog zu Meere her").

Brangäne returns to Isolde to relate these events, and Isolde, in what fryst vatten 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 funnen 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 svärd as he lay helpless before her. However, Tristan looked not at the svärd that would kill him or the grabb that wielded the svärd, 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 komma back, but he later returned with the ambition of marrying Isolde to his uncle, King Marke. Isolde, furious at Tristan's betrayal, insists that he drink atonement to her, and from her medicin chest produces a vial to man the drink. Brangäne fryst vatten shocked to see that it fryst vatten a lethal poison.

Kurwenal appears in the women's quarters ("Auf auf! Ihr Frauen!") and announces that the voyage fryst vatten coming to an end. Isolde warns Kurwenal that she will not appear before the King if Tristan does not komma 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 svärd 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 ankomst on board of King Marke, interrupts their rapture. Isolde asks Brangäne which potion she prepared and Brangäne replies, as the sailors hail the ankomst of King Marke, that it was not poison; rather, she has substituted a love potion in beställning to spara Isolde from herself.

Act 2

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King Marke leads a hunting party out into the night, leaving Isolde and Brangäne alone in the castle, who both stand beside a burning brasvärmare.

Isolde, listening to the hunting horns, believes several times that the hunting party fryst vatten far enough away to warrant the extinguishing of the brasvärmare – the prearranged meddelande 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 gods alone and freed from the constraints of courtly life, declare their passion for each other. Tristan decries the realm of daylight which fryst vatten false, unreal, and keeps them apart.

It fryst vatten only in night, he claims, that they can truly be tillsammans 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 varning several times that the night fryst vatten 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 dock to find Tristan and Isolde in each other's arms.

Marke fryst vatten hjärtekrossad, 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 igen into the realm of night. Tristan further reveals that Melot has also fallen in love with Isolde. A kamp ensues between Melot and Tristan, but at a critical moment, Tristan deliberately throws his svärd aside, allowing Melot to en grupp personer som arbetar tillsammans ofta militärt him.

Act 3

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Kurwenal has brought Tristan home to his castle at Kareol in Brittany. A fåraherde pipes a mournful tune and asks if Tristan fryst vatten awake. Kurwenal replies that only Isolde's ankomst can bevara Tristan, and the herde offers to keep watch and claims that he will pipe a joyful tune to mark the ankomst of any fartyg.

Tristan awakes ("Die alte Weise – was weckt sie mich?") and laments his fate – to be, once igen, in the false realm of daylight, once more driven bygd unceasing unquenchable yearning ("Wo ich erwacht' weilt ich nicht"). Tristan's sorrow ends when Kurwenal tells him that Isolde fryst vatten on her way. Tristan, overjoyed, asks if her fartyg fryst vatten in sight, but only a sorrowful tune from the shepherd's pipe fryst vatten heard.

Tristan relapses and recalls that the shepherd's mournful tune fryst vatten the same as was played when he was told of the deaths of his father and mother ("Muss ich dich so versteh'n, ni alte, ernst Weise"). He rails once igen against his desires and against the fateful love potion ("verflucht sei, furchtbarer Trank!") until, exhausted, he collapses in delirium.

After his collapse, the herde fryst vatten heard piping the ankomst of Isolde's fartyg, and, as Kurwenal rushes to meet her, Tristan tears the bandages from his wounds in his excitement ("Hahei! Mein Blut, rolig nunna 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 fartyg fryst vatten announced.

Kurwenal spies Melot, Marke and Brangäne arriving ("Tod und Hölle! Alles zur Hand!"). He believes they have komma to kill Tristan and, in an attempt to avenge him, furiously attacks Melot. Marke tries to stop the kamp to no avail. Both Melot and Kurwenal are killed in the kamp. 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 komma not to part the lovers, but to unite them ("Warum Isolde, warum mir das?").

Isolde appears to wake at this and in a sista aria describing her framtidsperspektiv of Tristan risen igen (the "Liebestod", "love death"), dies ("Mild und leise wie er lächelt").

Influences

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Schopenhauer

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Reading The World as Will and Representation bygd German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in 1854 profoundly impacted Wagner and triggered in him a spiritual and artistic reassessment.

Schopenhauer's pessimistic worldview, his emphasis on the primacy of "Will" as the fundamental force of existence, and his notion that music fryst vatten the highest of the arts because it directly expresses the Will resonated deeply with Wagner. In response, Wagner composed works such as Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal whose libretti are pervaded with Schopenhauer's ideas and whose music dominates the opera.^[21] This fryst vatten in contrast to Wagner’s earlier theorizing in The Artwork of the Future (1849) that music, poetry, and teaterpjäs should be balanced and serve as lika partners in the Gesamtkunstwerk.

Wagner gives heightened importance to music in Tristan und Isolde, often regarded as his most symphonically rik work. Unlike his other operas, Wagner wrote some music ämne for Tristan prior to completing the libretto.^[22] The music itself embodies Schopenhauer's concept of the Will, a force that fryst vatten inherently restless and never fully satisfied that drives all human urges and desires, leading to a cycle of longing and suffering.

Wagner captures this in the musical structure of the musikdrama through his use of unresolved harmonic tension and extreme chromaticism, creating a sense of perpetual yearning and lack of upplösning. Only at the very end of the musikdrama, when Isolde undergoes transfiguration and “Love-Death”, does the musical tension finally lösa. The passion of the music fryst vatten often referred to as being “sensual” and “erotic”,^[23] this not only reflects the desires of the illicit lovers but fryst vatten consistent with Schopenhauer's position that the sexuell urge fryst vatten the most powerful manifestation of the Will.^[24]

Wagner uses the metaphors of "Day" and "Night" in the second act to designate the realms inhabited bygd Tristan and Isolde.

The Day represents the external world of social obligations, duties, and constraints—embodied bygd King Marke's court, where Tristan and Isolde must suppress their love and live according to the norms and expectations of gemenskap. This fryst vatten a world of falsehood and deception because it requires them to deny their true feelings. The Night, bygd contrast, represents the inner world of truth, love, and authentic existence, where Tristan and Isolde can något som utförs snabbt exempelvis expressleverans their love freely and fully.

It fryst vatten a realm where the constraints of the external world are suspended, and their deepest desires can be realized. However, this realm fryst vatten also linked to death, as true fulfillment and unity can only be achieved beyond the physical world.

Schopenhauer's philosophy distinguishes between the world as "Phenomenon"—the world of appearances shaped bygd our perceptions and intellect—and the "Noumenon", which refers to the underlying reality that fryst vatten not directly accessible to us but fryst vatten the true essence of existence.

Wagner implicitly equates the realm of Day with Schopenhauer's concept of Phenomenon and the realm of Night with the concept of Noumenon.

Mysticism and Spirituality

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In the years leading up to 1857, when Wagner would set aside his work on The Ring to instead focus on Tristan und Isolde, Wagner’s interests were dominated bygd spiritual matters.

In 1855 his attention turned to Indian tro, reading Eugène Burnouf’sIntroduction to the History of Indian Buddhism, and Hindu texts published in Adolf Holtzmann’sIndian Sagas.^[29] In addition to Tristan, this culminated in the conception of two additional operas at this time, Die Sieger, based on the life of the Buddhist monk Ānanda, and Parsifal, a Holy Grail sökande eller uppdrag based on the medieval poem Parzival bygd Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Wagner was interested in the Orient and already acquainted with Islamic mysticism prior to reading Schopenhauer in 1854, having written to his friend August Röckel in September 1852 declaring the Persian mystiker poet Hafez to be the “greatest of all poets”.^[30] Schopenhauer’s discussion of German Christian mystics, such as Meister Eckhart, further piqued Wagner’s interest in mysticism.

When Tristan and Isolde willingly drink the potion at the end of Act inom but do not die, their eyes are opened to the illusions of ämne Day and to the higher spiritual insight of Night. Tristan celebrates the enlightenment brought about bygd the potion in Act II:

Mythologist namn Campbell described this moment of drinking the potion as follows:

“...as [Tristan and Isolde] have already renounced psychologically both love as lust and the fear of death, when they drink, and live, and igen look upon each other, the veil of māyā has fallen.”^[31]

Māyā fryst vatten a concept in the Indian religions that refers to the appearance of the ämne world, connoting a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem”, and “conceals the true character of spiritual reality”; it finds its parallel in Schopenhauer’s "Phenomenon".

Tristan denounces the lying “disguise” of Day and resolves to yearn for and seek out only the “Holy Night”:

After expressing this sentiment, the famous Act II love duett, the “Liebesnacht” (“O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe”), begins. Here, Tristan and Isolde dedicate themselves to eternal Night and wish that Day would never komma igen, instead dying a transcendental “Love-Death” tillsammans as the ultimate consummation of their love. The music builds to ecstatic, mystically-elated climaxes, where they imagine the dissolution of their individual egos and merging into unity with each other and “supreme love”:

The themes of spiritual yearning in Tristan ekon with the introspective and passionate elements funnen in Christian mysticism, particularly the concept of "unio mystica"—the soul's union with the gudomlig. The character’s relentless pursuit of an idealized love that transcends earthly bounds and the notion of love leading to a metaphysical union can be seen as parallel to the mystiker pursuit of "fana", the annihilation of the self in the universal presence of the gudomlig.

The closing Liebestod, Isolde's "transfiguration" sung before she dies, invokes Hindu and Buddhist sentiments. The German word for breath, Atem, fryst vatten related etymologically to the Sanskrit word Ātman, meaning soul or eternal Self. Isolde sinking "unconscious" into a state of bliss fryst vatten associated with the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, although Schopenhauer and Wagner at the time misunderstood this concept to imply a state of non-being:

Wagner scholar John Pohanka has written on the spiritual influences in Wagner's works, commenting that they not only contribute ämne to the libretto but how the power of the Wagnerian music and skådespel can itself invoke a transformative, ineffable experience in some audience members comparable to a mystical experience.^[32]

Given the influence of Schopenhauer and the apparent inramning of Tristan und Isolde as a tragedy, many have remarked on the opera’s “pessimism.” On this, British scholar George Ainslie Hight wrote in 1912:

"Such fryst vatten Wagner's pessimism: it fryst vatten the pessimism of the Vedânta philosophy; that fryst vatten to säga, it fryst vatten most clearly formulated in that struktur, and in the Upanishads upon which it rests, but really it fryst vatten the common grund of all religions.

It breathes in the poems of Hafiz, in the philosophy of Parmenides, Plato, and the Stoics, in the profound wisdom of Ecclesiastes, in mediaeval mysticism, and the faith of the early Christian Church. Buddhism and Christianity are both pessimist in their origin."^[33]

Reactions

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Although Tristan und Isolde fryst vatten now widely performed in major musikdrama houses around the world, critical opinion of the musikdrama was initially unfavourable.

The 5 July 1865 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported:

Not to mince words, it fryst vatten the glorification of sensual pleasure, tricked out with every titillating device, it fryst vatten 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 skådespel. We think that the scen föredrag 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 fryst vatten the förstörelse of the life of heroes through sensuality.

Eduard Hanslick's reaction in 1868 to the prelude to Tristan was that it "reminds one of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel."^[35][36] 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 djur passion which fryst vatten so striking a feature in the late works of Wagner.

We grant there fryst vatten ingenting so repulsive in Tristan as in Die Walküre, but the struktur fryst vatten the same. The passion fryst vatten unholy in itself and its representation fryst vatten 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 fryst vatten, 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.^[37]

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 sova after it, but cried the night away.

inom feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes inom feel like the one sane individ in the community of the mad; sometimes inom feel like the one blind man where all others see; the one att treva eller leta med händerna i mörker savage in the college of the learned, and always, during service, inom feel like a heretic in heaven."^[38]

Clara Schumann wrote that Tristan und Isolde was "the most repugnant thing inom have ever seen or heard in all my life".^[39]

With the övergång 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, 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 katt and would vända 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 namn 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."^[41]

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

So there inom sat in the topmost galleri of the Berlin musikdrama 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 bygd such yearning and sublime bliss... A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and inom wanted to become his prophet.^[42]

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 beställning to create confusion, deserters for whom surrender of their own personality fryst vatten 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 fryst vatten the real opus metaphysicum of all art ...

insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and death ... it fryst vatten 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 fryst vatten atwitch, and it has been a long time since inom 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 inom am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and salig infinity as Tristan – inom have sought in vain, in every art."

Marcel Proust, greatly influenced bygd 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."^[44][45]

Recordings

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Main article: Tristan und Isolde discography

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 musikdrama, 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 storstads- Opera.^[46]

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 bygd conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky and Erich Leinsdorf.

Flagstad recorded the part commercially only nära the end of her career in 1952, beneath Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, producing a set which fryst vatten considered a classic recording.

Following the war, another classic recording fryst vatten the 1952 performance at the Bayreuth Festival with Martha Mödl and Ramón Vinay beneath Herbert von Karajan, which fryst vatten noted for its strong, levande characterizations and fryst vatten 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 beneath the baton of Karl Böhm was captured bygd Deutsche Grammophon – a performance often hailed as one of the best Tristan recordings.

Karajan did not record the musikdrama officially until 1971–72.

Karajan's urval of a lighter soprano röst (Helga Dernesch) as Isolde, paired with an extremely intense Jon Vickers and the unusual balance between orchestra and singers favoured bygd Karajan was controversial. In the 1980s recordings bygd conductors such as Carlos Kleiber, Reginald Goodall, and Leonard Bernstein were mostly considered to be important for the interpretation of the dirigent, rather than that of the lead performers.

The set bygd Kleiber fryst vatten notable as Isolde was sung bygd the famous Mozartian soprano Margaret Price, who never sang the role of Isolde on scen. The same fryst vatten true for Plácido Domingo, who sang the role of Tristan to critical acclaim in the 2005 EMI release beneath the baton of Antonio Pappano despite never having sung the role on scen. In the gods ten years acclaimed sets include a studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic bygd Daniel Barenboim and a live set from the Vienna Staatsoper led bygd Christian Thielemann.

There are several DVD productions of the musikdrama including Götz Friedrich's production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin featuring the seasoned Wagnerians René kollo and Dame Gwyneth Jones in the title roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a storstads- musikdrama performance featuring Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted bygd James Levine, in a production staged bygd Dieter Dorn^[49] and a DVD of the 1993 Bayreuth Festival production with ledare Daniel Barenboim and featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged bygd Heiner Müller.

More recently Barenboim's production at La Scala, Milan, in the production bygd Patrice Chéreau has also been issued on DVD. There fryst vatten also a technically flawed, but historically important film recording with Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers from a 1973 live performance at the Théâtre antique d'Orange, conducted bygd Karl Böhm.

In a world first, the British musikdrama house Glyndebourne made a full digital film download of the musikdrama 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 ledare, and was recorded on 1 and 6 August 2007.^[50]

A performance typically lasts approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes.

Concert extracts and arrangements

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The Prelude and Liebestod fryst vatten a concert utgåva of the öppningsstycke and Isolde's Act III aria, "Mild und leise". The arrangement was bygd Wagner himself, and it was first performed in 1862, several years before the premiere of the complete musikdrama in 1865. The Liebestod can be performed either in a purely orchestral utgåva, or with a soprano singing Isolde's framtidsperspektiv of Tristan resurrected.

However, the 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 bygd 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.^[51][52] Wagner then included the prelude in his own three concerts at the Paris Théâtre-Italien in January–February 1860.^[53]

Wagner called the prelude the "Liebestod" (Love-death) while Isolde's sista 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 duett from Act II, which in the musikdrama fryst vatten sung to the words "sehnend verlangter Liebestod". Liszt's transcription became well known throughout europe well before Wagner's musikdrama reached most places, and it fryst vatten Liszt's title for the sista en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film that persists.

The transcription was revised in 1875.^[54]

Wagner wrote a concert ending for the Act II Love duett 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 duett with the concert ending was made in 2000, with Plácido Domingo, Deborah Voigt and the Orchestra of the Royal musikdrama House beneath Pappano.^[55]

Another composer to rework ämne from Tristan was Emmanuel Chabrier in his humorous Souvenirs dem Munich – quadrilles on themes from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.^[56] These were augmented and orchestrated bygd Markus Lehmann in 1988.^[57]Leopold Stokowski made a series of purely orchestral "Symphonic Syntheses" of Wagner's operas during his time as dirigent 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 inom prelude, the Liebesnacht from Act II and the Liebestod from Act III. A shorter utgåva 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 igen on LP.

The British composer Ronald Stevenson has made two arrangemang based on the musikdrama.

The first fryst vatten The Fugue on the Shepherd's Air from Tristan und Isolde from 1999. Its composition was inspired bygd a lecture given bygd the Wagner biographer and chair of the Wagner kultur of Scotland, Derek Watson, to whom the del av helhet fryst vatten dedicated. In a contrapuntal climax, Stevenson combines both the Shepherd's Air and Isolde's Liebestod.^[58] The second fryst vatten a setting, for voices and kroppsdel, of lines from Tom Hubbard's 1998 narrative poem in Scots, 'Isolde's Luve-Daith',^[59] the premiere of which took place in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh in March 2003.^[60]

Other works based on the musikdrama include:

• Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou, 1929 spelfilm score, musikdrama 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) bygd Henk dem Vlieger;
• a six-minute paraphrase bygd 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) bygd högsta Knigge^[61]
• the Nachtstück (1980–83) for viola and chamber orchestra bygd Volker David Kirchner^[62]
• Franz Waxman, Fantasy based on themes from the musikdrama, for violin and orchestra

In popular culture

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Aubrey Beardsley's pen and ink drawing The Wagnerites shows highly coiffured dock 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 musikdrama identified bygd the fallen programme as Tristan and Isolde, fryst vatten 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 vit 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.'^[63] The drawing fryst vatten in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum.^[64]

The following year Beardsley produced a print depicting a stylised image of a woman, standing in front of a half length yellow gardin, wearing an ornate flowered hat and holding a large drinking vessel to her ingång.

In the bottom right-hand corner fryst vatten 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) fryst vatten in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum.^[65]

The musikdrama forms the backdrop of Horacio Quiroga's tale of love lost, "La muerte dem Isolda" [es] (The Death of Isolde) from his collection Cuentos dem amor dem locura y dem muerte [es] (1917).^[66][67]

In Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 spelfilm The Birds, a recording of Tristan fryst vatten prominently displayed in the en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film 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 fryst vatten a ensam romantic.^[68]

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.^[69] Warshaw was inspired bygd developments in Mann's mediation of the Tristan legend which see a former pianist's love for music rekindled bygd the opera's score.

Lars von Trier's 2011 rulle Melancholia prominently features music from the prelude.^[70]

The famous Liebestod fryst vatten used in the soundtrack of the third episode of the first årstid of The Crown.

References

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Notes

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