Wagner - Tristan and Isolde
Tristan and Isoult, 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 illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult in the days of King Arthur. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them.
Opera Data
Composed by:
Richard Wagner (1857-59)
First performance:
10 June 1865, Court Opera, Munich.
Scenario:
They were written by the composer himself (in German)
Original work:
Based on Gottfried von Strassburg's epic poem 'Tristan und Isolde' and other legends about Tristan.
Duration:
Act 1: 80 mins.
Act 2: 80 mins.
Act 3: 70 mins. Total: about 3 hours 50 mins.
Place:
Legendary medieval Cornwall, south-west England.
Characters:
Tristan, a Breton nobleman, adopted heir of Marke (tenor)
Isolde, an Irish princess, betrothed to Mark (soprano)
Mark, King of Cornwall (bass)
Brangäne, Isolde's maid (soprano)
Kurwenal, Tristan's servant (baritone)
Melot, a courtier, Tristan's friend (tenor)
Act 1:
The time is the legendary Middle Ages, and the setting is Cornwall in the south-west of England. Isolde, an Irish princess, is sailing to marry King Mark, the ruler of Cornwall, accompanied by Tristan, the King's nephew and loyal servant.
Tristan had once killed Isolde's fiancé on the battlefield, and although he wounded himself, Isolde had taken care of him under a false name. Isolde soon realised that Tristan was her fiancé's avenger, but she had fallen in love with him by then.
Isolde felt a strong resentment towards Tristan for making her King's the King's wife. She urges Tristan to take the poison.
However, when Isolde's maid, Brangene, was ordered by Isolde to prepare the poison, she prepared a 'love potion' instead of poison. By the time the ship arrived in Cornwall, Tristan and Isolde had fallen madly in love.
Act 2:
After Isolde has married King Mark, while King Mark is out hunting, Tristan visits Isolde, and they talk about their love. Then suddenly, King Mark returns. This was a trying the King's loyal subject, Melot, who had fallen in love with Isolde.
King Mark is deeply saddened by Tristan's betrayal of his trust and that of his queen. When questioning the King, Tristan makes no excuses. When Melot strikes him, Tristan drops his sword and falls on the blade himself.
Act 3:
Tristan's castle in Brittany, north-west France. Tristan's squire, Kurwenal, summons Isolde to the badly wounded Tristan. But as Isolde rushes to him, he dies.
Then King Mark arrives to discover that it is all because of the love potion. But by then, Isolde's fate had already been decided. She followed Tristan and fell madly in love with him.
Commentary (key points)
[1] A masterpiece of love created by infidelity.
After completing Lohengrin, Wagner was accused of political crimes and fled to Zurich, Switzerland. A wealthy merchant, Otto Wesendonck, provided the Wagners with a house.
They moved in 1857, but Wagner's relationship with his wife Minna had already cooled. Likewise, Frau Mathilde Wesendonck had grown distant from her husband, so it was only natural that she and Wagner grew closer.
But it was only an unattainable love, and all the anguish of Wagner's love poured into this opera, Tristan und Isolde. Wagner is even said to have exclaimed, 'Richard, you are the Devil's son!'
[2] Destruction of tonal music
Wagner called Lohengrin a 'romantic opera' but later declared: 'I no longer write opera'. He redefined opera as a comprehensive art form and aimed for a 'musical theatre' that further fused music, words and dramatic content.
In Tristan und Isolde, he brought tonal music to the brink of collapse with his extensive use of chromatic progressions. He succeeded in taking a step into the world of 'atonality'. In this sense, it is a work of great significance for the entire history of Western music. The opera challenged ethics in its content and tonality in its music.
[3] A sensual swell of love
This is a long opera, lasting about four hours, but I recommend listening to the intro as a trial. The intro, often featured alone in orchestral concerts, will give you a sense of the sensual sound of Tristan und Isolde.
The motive used in this intro, the indicative motive, appears many times throughout the opera. As a play, the opera has little movement, but the opera is an expression of sensual love, which Wagner described as 'supreme'. The sheer 'swell' of the music and expression is overwhelming.
Tristan and Isolde
https://opera-synopsis.sakura.ne.jp/tristanundisolde.html
Tristan and Isolde - Wikipedia
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_and_Iseult
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_und_Isolde
Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Barenboim, Ponnelle, 1983) (complete - ST de-fr-eng-esp)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdjFBW-S3z0
1993 Berlin German Opera Rene Kollo & Guinness Jones Wagner "Tristan and Isolde" Act 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oorc1EaMEI
1993 Berlin German Opera Rene Kollo & Guinness Jones Wagner "Tristan and Isolde" Acts 2 and 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj5iro8UuGY
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde/ Prelude and Liebestod/ Solti Wph
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDJbEV41uPI
Wagner - Tristan and Isolde - Full Opera (English Subtitles) (Barenboim, Ponnelle, 1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0X9xDqqxAA
Wagner [Life and masterpieces] Numerous operas and festival plays fascinate celebrities from all over the world! A detailed explanation of the life of a revolutionary classical music composer / The Ring of the Nibelung, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Parsifal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FK4JTi2v0
Tristan & Isolde's full movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2lFJSfdwYU
DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG Wagner – Teatro Real
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ2VtHPbRd0&t=275s
In Midsummer's Eve in Nuremberg, the real-life cobbler-poet Hans Sachs and the guild of mastersingers pursue their craft of poetry and music according to traditions and rules. A goldsmith's daughter, Eva, and a knight, Walther von Stolzing, fall in love, but Eva'Eva'sher has promised her to win the forthcoming song contest. Under the wise tuition of Sachs, can Walther learn the mastmastersinger's in time to win Eva'Eva'sd and see off a challenge from the foolish town clerk Beckmesser?
Richard WagnWagner'sy's comic opera had a long gestation. Summer 1845: drawing on the History of German Literature and the biography of poet and shoemaker Hans Sachs, the composer sketches ideas for a satirical counterpart to Tannhäuser. Autumn 1861: Wagner writes to his publisher that he intends to cheer himself up with 'something lighter' and begins composing Die Meistersinger, which he would not complete until six years later. With a sense of self-derision with which he is not usually associated, Wagner brings together an exercise in style and an aesthetic manifesto in praise of the 'noble and holy German art!'. We're an opera that speaks volumes about the composer's preoccupations: the widening divide between high art and popular culture and the fracturing of tradition by the radically new. Wise and audacious, the characters of Sachs and Walther can be seen as a double self-portrait of their creator. OperaVision shares live Teatro Real's production (the first in Madrid for 22 years), conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado and staged by a director with some gift for comedy, Laurent Pelly.
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Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, mainly based on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by 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 referred to the work not as an opera but as "literally a drama, a plot, or an action".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_und_Isolde
Story:
A)
Kurwenal appears in the woman's room and tells her the voyage is ending. Isolde warns Kurwenal that Tristan will not appear before the King unless he appears before her as he had previously ordered and gives him a drink of atonement.
B)
When Tristan arrives, Isolde condemns his conduct and tells him that Tristan owes her his life and that his actions have dishonoured her because he has sworn revenge for blessing Morold's weapons before the battle. Tristan initially offers her his sword, but Isolde refuses.
They must drink atonement. Brangene brings them a potion that seals their absolution. Tristan knows Isolde's magical powers and knows it may kill him. The journey is almost over. Tristan drinks, and Isolde takes half of the potion for herself.
C)
The potion seems to work, but it does not bring death but obsessive love. Their jubilation is interrupted by Kurwenal, who tells them that King Marke will soon arrive on the ship.
Isolde asks Brangene which medicine he has prepared. As the sailors welcome the arrival of King Mark, Brangene replies that he has substituted a love potion, not poison, to save Isolde from herself.
Act 2.
D)
King Mark leads the night hunting party and leaves them at the castle, leaving Isolde and Brangene alone by the burning brazier. Isolde hears the sound of the hunting horn and thinks repeatedly that the hunting party is far enough away to put out the brazier.
This is a pre-arranged signal for Tristan to join them. Brangene warns Isolde that Melot, one of King Mark's knights, has seen Tristan and Isolde's affair and is suspicious of their passion.
E)
But Isolde believes Melot to be Tristan's most loyal friend and, driven by mad desire, extinguishes the brazier. Brangene returns to the ramparts and watches for Tristan's arrival.
Alone at last, freed from the constraints of court life, the lovers confess their passion for each other. Tristan accuses the day world of being false and unrealistic and keeping them apart. He argues that only at night can they be together, and only in the long night of death can they be united forever.
F)
During their long meeting, Brangene repeatedly warns her that the night is coming, but her cries go unheeded. When dawn breaks, Melot leads King Marke and his men to find Tristan and Isolde in each other's arms. Marke is horrified by her nephew's betrayal, Melot's choice to betray his friend Tristan to King Mark, and Isolde's betrayal is also grieved.
G)
When questioned, Tristan explains that he cannot reveal the reason for his betrayal to the King, as he thinks the King would not understand. He then turns to Isolde, who agrees to accompany him to the World of Night. Tristan further reveals that Melot is also in love with Isolde. A fight breaks out between Melot and Tristan, but at the critical moment, Tristan purposely throws away his sword and is stabbed by Melot.
Act 3.
H)
Kurwenal brings Tristan back to his castle in Carréol, Brittany. A shepherd blows a mournful whistle and asks if Tristan is awake. Kurwenal replies that only the arrival of Isolde can save Tristan, and the shepherd offers to stand guard and blow his joyful whistle when the ship arrives.
I)
Tristan wakes up and laments his fate. He returns once more to the false daylight world and is once more driven by an unquenchable longing that will never cease. When Kurwenal tells him that Isolde is on her way. Tristan is overjoyed and asks if he can see her ship, but he hears a sad sound from the shepherd.
J)
Tristan is sick again and remembers that the steeper sad song was the same play when he was told of his father and mother. He again opposes his desires and the aphrodisiacs of fate and falls into exhaustion and delirium.
K)
After he collapses, Tristan excitedly rips the bandages off his wounds when he hears the shepherd's whistle announcing the arrival of Isolde's ship, and Kurwenal rushes to meet her. When Isolde comes to his side, Tristan draws his last breath, uttering her name.
L)
Isolde collapses beside her deceased lover just as the appearance of another ship is announced. Kurwenal witnesses the arrival of Melot, Mark and Brangene. Kurwenal believes they have come to kill Tristan and, seeking revenge angrily attacks Melot.
King Mark tries to stop the fight but to no avail. Melot and Kurwenal are killed in the battle. Mark and Brangene finally reach Tristan and Isolde.
M)
King Mark is saddened to see the body of her most faithful friend, explaining that Brangene has revealed the secret of the love potion and that he has come not to separate the lovers but to bring them together.
Isolde seems awakened by this and dies in the final aria, which describes the fantasy that Tristan will rise again.
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Richard Wagner -- Tristan und Isolde (Prelude and Liebestod) -- Score
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cLh7bRY-Rk
It starts with a single chord. Not just any chord, but one that has defied classification and description since it was first played, to the point that it is an entirely unique progression, simply "the Tristan Chord". The opera continues as a massive act in harmonic suspension and chromatic writing. While the Ring Cycle is usually considered Wagner's most excellent work, if for nothing more than the sheer scale of it, Tristan und Isolde is likely his most innovative.
The ancient story of forbidden love between Isolde, who had been pledged to Marke of Cornwall, and Tristan, who Marke had commanded to bring his bride-to-be, likely resonated with Wagner, considering his extramarital affairs with Mathilde Wesendonck and Cosima von Bulow. Wagner's interest in Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy, the gulf between wants and fulfilment, and the ultimate tragedy brought by uninhibited desire also reflected the duality between the courtly and the sensual duty and desire.
Musically, the opera was unlike anything before it, so opinion at the time was sharply divided, either a work of genius or madness. Subsequent composers either embraced Wagner's new musical ideas or actively rebelled against them. The opera took six years to finally get to the stage, mainly through the encouragement of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Even then, it was considered almost impossible to perform, requiring too much endurance from its principles, an opinion only reinforced after the first Tristan, Ludwig Schnorr von Karlsfeld, suddenly died after performing the role only four times. It still has a daunting reputation among musicians and audiences, but it is worth the effort.
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The longing of "Tristan and Isolde."
http://gaya.jp/myprofile/tristan.htm
Above all, we must note the unique physiological effect of Tristan's harmony. This exquisite harmony somehow sounds sensual. This is precisely the main attraction of this musical drama. Never before this music has a sound sounded so alluring and beautiful. The principle that evokes this sense of legal pleasure seems to lie in the choice of the notes F, H, Dis and Gis, based on the accumulation of 'four-degree intervals'. This principle dominates every inch of the musical drama. The resulting narcotic effect lures the listener into a world of euphoria, a world of musical pleasure. We are helpless before the overwhelmingly incendiary effect of this harmony. A virtual world that transcends musical reason. Its irresistible Mephistophelean centripetal effect. Euphoria of illusion. Cathartic yearning. Emotional purification. An art within art that fully expresses the allure of music. This is Tristan und Isolde.
