Tristan und Isolde

Tristan und Isolde
Music drama by Richard Wagner
Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld and his wife Malvina starring as Tristan and Isolde in the first performance.
Librettist	Richard Wagner
Language	German
Based on	Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg
Premiere	10 June 1865 (1865-06-10) Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater, Munich

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. First conceived in 1854, the music 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. ^[1] While performed by opera companies, Wagner preferred the term Handlung (German for "plot" or "action") for Tristan to distinguish its structure of continuous narrative flow ("endless melody") as distinct from that of conventional opera at the time which was constructed of mundane recitatives punctuated by showpiece arias, which Wagner had come to regard with great disdain.

Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired in part by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as by his relationship with his muse Mathilde Wesendonck. ^[2] The opera, which explores existential themes such as that of mankind's insatiable striving and the transcendental nature of love and death, incorporates spirituality from Christian mysticism and well as Vedantic and Buddhist metaphysics, subjects that also interested Schopenhauer. ^[3] As such, Wagner was one of the earliest Western artists to introduce concepts from the Dharmic religions into their works. ^[4]

Tristan und Isolde is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of Western art music, intriguing audiences with philosophical depths not usually associated with opera, and the "terrible and sweet infinity" of its musical-poetic language. ^[5] Its advanced harmony, immediately announced by the famous opening Tristan chord of its prelude, marks a defining moment in the evolution of modern music, characterized by unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and prolonged harmonic suspension. ^[6] While these innovations divided audiences initially, the opera grew in popularity and became enormously influential among Western classical composers, providing direct inspiration to Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, 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. ^[7] 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

Photo of Wagner in Brussels, 1860

Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the Dresden Opera in 1849, as there was a warrant posted for his arrest for his participation in the unsuccessful May Revolution. He left his wife, Minna, in Dresden, 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. ^[8] Though Wagner was working on his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen , he found himself intrigued by the legend of 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. ^[9]

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. ^[10]

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." ^[11]

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. ^[12]

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 Siegfried to do so. On 20 August he began the prose sketch for the opera, and the libretto (or poem, as Wagner preferred to call it) was completed by 18 September. ^[13] Wagner, at this time, had moved into a cottage built in the grounds of Wesendonck's villa, where, during his work on Tristan und Isolde, he became passionately involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether or not this relationship was platonic 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 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. ^[14] 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. ^[15]

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. ^[16] 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. ^[17]

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 Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, to stage his operas in Rio de 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 Emperor bound copies of his earlier operas in expression of his interest, but nothing more came of the plan. ^[18] He then proposed that the premiere take place in Strasbourg, following interest in the project shown by the Grand Duchess of Baden. Again, the project failed to eventuate. ^[18] His thoughts then turned to Paris, the centre of the operatic world in the middle of the 19th century. However, after a disastrous staging of Tannhäuser at the Paris Opéra, 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 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 found 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 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. ^[19]

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 Western music

The score of Tristan und Isolde has often been cited as a landmark in the development of Western music. ^[20] 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 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: ^[21]

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♯, bar 3). Tristan und Isolde is also notable for its use of harmonic suspension – a device used by a composer to create musical tension by exposing the listener to a series of prolonged unfinished cadences, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical resolution. ^[22] 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!"). Resolution of the music does not occur until the very end of the opera, 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. ^[23]

The tonality of Tristan was to prove immensely influential in western Classical music. Wagner's use of musical colour also influenced the development of film music. Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Vertigo , is heavily reminiscent of the Liebestod , most evidently in the resurrection scene. The Liebestod was incorporated in Luis Buñuel's 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 [24]	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) [25]	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:

• 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 stark zu besetzen. [The string instruments are to be exquisitely cast in quantity and quality.])

on-stage

• cor anglais, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones

Influences

Schopenhauer

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

Reading The World as Will and Representation by 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 is 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. ^[26] This is in contrast to Wagner’s earlier theorizing in The Artwork of the Future (1849) that music, poetry, and drama should be balanced and serve as equal partners in the Gesamtkunstwerk.

Wagner gives heightened importance to music in Tristan und Isolde, often regarded as his most symphonically rich work. Unlike his other operas, Wagner wrote some music material for Tristan prior to completing the libretto. ^[27] The music itself embodies Schopenhauer's concept of the Will, a force that is 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 opera through his use of unresolved harmonic tension and extreme chromaticism, creating a sense of perpetual yearning and lack of resolution. Only at the very end of the opera, when Isolde undergoes transfiguration and "Love-Death", does the musical tension finally resolve. The passion of the music is often referred to as being "sensual" and "erotic", ^[28] this not only reflects the desires of the illicit lovers but is consistent with Schopenhauer's position that the sexual urge is the most powerful manifestation of the Will. ^[29]

Wagner uses the metaphors of "Day" and "Night" in the second act to designate the realms inhabited by Tristan and Isolde. ^[30] The Day represents the external world of social obligations, duties, and constraints—embodied by King Marke's court, where Tristan and Isolde must suppress their love and live according to the norms and expectations of society. This is a world of falsehood and deception because it requires them to deny their true feelings. The Night, by contrast, represents the inner world of truth, love, and authentic existence, where Tristan and Isolde can express their love freely and fully. It is a realm where the constraints of the external world are suspended, and their deepest desires can be realized. However, this realm is also linked to death, as true fulfillment and unity can only be achieved beyond the physical world. ^[31]

Schopenhauer's philosophy distinguishes between the world as "Phenomenon"—the world of appearances shaped by our perceptions and intellect—and the "Noumenon", which refers to the underlying reality that is not directly accessible to us but is 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. ^[32]

Mysticism and Spirituality

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (1652) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Like Bernini's sculpture, the mysticism of Wagner's operas like Tristan drew criticism for an "emotionalism of a colour at once erotic and religiously enthusiastic."

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 by spiritual matters. In 1855 his attention turned to Indian religion, reading Eugène Burnouf’s Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism, and Hindu texts published in Adolf Holtzmann’s Indian Sagas. ^[34] 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 quest based on the medieval poem Parzival by 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 Sufi poet Hafez to be the "greatest of all poets". ^[35] 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 I but do not die, their eyes are opened to the illusions of material Day and to the higher spiritual insight of Night. Tristan celebrates the enlightenment brought about by the potion in Act II:

Oh hail the potion! Hail to the draft!
Hail to its magic's magnificent craft!
Through the gates of Death, to me it flowed,
wide and open, for me it showed,
that which I've only dreamed to have sight,
the wondrous realm of Night!

Mythologist Joseph 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 again look upon each other, the veil of māyā has fallen." ^[36]

Māyā is a concept in the Indian religions that refers to the appearance of the material 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":

Oh, now we are with Night anointed!
The treacherous Day, with envy pointed,
could part us with its disguise,
but no longer cheat us with lies!
Amid the Day's deluded churning,
remains one single yearning—
the yearning for the Holy Night,
where all-eternal's solely true
Love does laugh with delight!

After expressing this sentiment, the famous Act II love duet, the "Liebesnacht" ("O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe"), begins. Here, Tristan and Isolde dedicate themselves to eternal Night and wish that Day would never come again, instead dying a transcendental "Love-Death" together 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":

Tristan you, I Isolde, no longer Tristan!
You Isolde, Tristan I, no longer Isolde!
Without naming, without separating,
newly perceiving, newly igniting;
endless, eternal, one-consciousness:
a heart fervently burning with supreme love’s joy!

The themes of spiritual yearning in Tristan resonate with the introspective and passionate elements found in Christian mysticism, particularly the concept of "unio mystica"—the soul's union with the divine. 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 Sufi pursuit of "fana", the annihilation of the self in the universal presence of the divine.

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

In the unbounded swell,
in the resounding call,
in the world's breath, flowing in all!
To drown...
to sink...
unconscious...
supreme bliss!

Wagner scholar John Pohanka has written on the spiritual influences in Wagner's works, commenting that they not only contribute material to the libretto but how the power of the Wagnerian music and drama can itself invoke a transformative, ineffable experience in some audience members comparable to a mystical experience. ^[37]

Given the influence of Schopenhauer and the apparent framing 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 is Wagner's pessimism: it is the pessimism of the Vedânta philosophy; that is to say, it is most clearly formulated in that system, and in the Upanishads upon which it rests, but really it is the common basis 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." ^[38]

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. ^[39]

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." ^{[40] [41]} 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. ^[42]

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." ^[43]

Clara Schumann wrote that Tristan und Isolde was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life". ^[44]

With the passage of time, Tristan became more favourably regarded. In an interview shortly before his death, Giuseppe Verdi said that he "stood in wonder and terror" before Wagner's Tristan. ^[45] 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 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." ^[46]

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. ^[47]

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." ^[48]

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." ^{[49] [50]}

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. ^[51]

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. ^[52]

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. ^[53]

Karajan did not record the opera officially until 1971–72. Karajan's selection of a lighter soprano voice (Helga Dernesch) as Isolde, paired with an extremely intense Jon Vickers and the unusual balance between orchestra and singers favoured by Karajan was controversial. In the 1980s recordings by conductors such as Carlos Kleiber, Reginald Goodall, and Leonard Bernstein were mostly considered to be important for the interpretation of the conductor, rather than that of the lead performers. The set by Kleiber is notable as Isolde was sung by the famous Mozartian soprano Margaret Price, who never sang the role of Isolde on stage. The same is true for Plácido Domingo, who sang the role of Tristan to critical acclaim in the 2005 EMI release under the baton of Antonio Pappano despite never having sung the role on stage. In the last ten years acclaimed sets include a studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic by Daniel Barenboim and a live set from the Vienna Staatsoper led by Christian Thielemann.

There are several DVD productions of the opera 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 Metropolitan Opera performance featuring Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted by James Levine, in a production staged by Dieter Dorn ^[54] and a DVD of the 1993 Bayreuth Festival production with conductor Daniel Barenboim and featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged by Heiner Müller. More recently Barenboim's production at La Scala, Milan, in the production by Patrice Chéreau has also been issued on DVD. There is also a technically flawed, but historically important video recording with Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers from a 1973 live performance at the 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. ^[55]

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 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. ^{[56] [57]} Wagner then included the prelude in his own three concerts at the Paris Théâtre-Italien in January–February 1860. ^[58]

Wagner called the prelude the "Liebestod" (Love-death) while Isolde's final aria "Mild und leise" he called the "Verklärung" (Transfiguration). In 1867 his father-in-law Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of "Mild und leise", which he called "Liebestod" (S.447); he prefaced his score with a four-bar motto from the love duet from Act II, which in the opera is sung to the words "sehnend verlangter Liebestod". Liszt's transcription became well known throughout Europe well before Wagner's opera reached most places, and it is Liszt's title for the final scene that persists. The transcription was revised in 1875. ^[59]

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. ^[60]

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. ^[61] These were augmented and orchestrated by Markus Lehmann in 1988. ^[62] 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. ^[63] The second is a setting, for voices and organ, of lines from Tom Hubbard's 1998 narrative poem in Scots, 'Isolde's Luve-Daith', ^[64] the premiere of which took place in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh in March 2003. ^[65]

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 ^[66]
• the Nachtstück (1980–83) for viola and chamber orchestra by Volker David Kirchner ^[67]
• 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.' ^[68] The drawing is in the collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum. ^[69]

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. ^[70]

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). ^{[71] [72]}

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. ^[73]

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. ^[74] 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. ^[75]

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

References

Notes

1. Cavendish, Richard. "The premiere of Tristan und Isolde". History Today Ltd. Company no. 1556332. History Today. Retrieved 31 October 2024.
2. Weiler, Sherri (January 2006). "Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder: Isolde Personified" (PDF). Journal of Singing. 62 (3): 267–278. Retrieved 31 October 2024.
3. Magee 2001, pp. 126–152.
4. Atkinson, Timothy (February 2007). "Western Buddhism: Past, Present and Future". International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture. 8: 149–163. Retrieved 31 October 2024.
5. Groos, Arthur (2011). Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN   9780521437387.
6. Millington, Barry (2001). "Tristan und Isolde". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 26 (2nd ed.): 218–225.
7. Vazsonyi, Nicholas (2013). The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   110700425X.
8. 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.
9. Classen 2003.
10. Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617a.
11. Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617b.
12. Gutman 1990, p. 163.
13. Millington 1992, p. 300.
14. Millington 1992, p. 318.
15. Deathridge 2008, ch. "Public and Private Life", pp. 117–132.
16. Gutman 1990, pp. 180–182.
17. Gutman 1990, p. 182.
18. Peter Bassett, "Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde". Retrieved 25 September 2016 ^{[ full citation needed ]}
19. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., Vol. IX, p. 37
20. Rose, John Luke. "A Landmark in Musical History" in Wagner 1981 , p. 15.
21. Magee 2001, p. 208.
22. Magee 1983, p. 356.
23. Millington 1992, p. 252.
24. 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).
25. 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 ]}
26. Magee, Bryan (1997). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Rev. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 350. ISBN   0198237235 . Retrieved 31 August 2024.
27. Dahlhaus, Carl (1979). Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 54. ISBN   0521223970 . Retrieved 1 September 2024.
28. Ross, Alex (2021). Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music. New York: Picador. p. 67. ISBN   0374285934.
29. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1909). The World As Will And Idea, Vol. I. (Seventh ed.). London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. p. 425. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
30. Magee 2001, pp. 217–221.
31. Magee 2001, p. 221.
32. Magee 2001, p. 218.
33. Nordau, Max (1895). Degeneration. New York : Appleton. p. 172. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
34. Wagner, Richard; Spencer, Stewart; Millington, Barry (1988). Selected letters of Richard Wagner (1st American ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. p. 164. ISBN   0393025004.
35. Spencer, Stewart; Millington, Barry (1987). Selected letters of Richard Wagner. New York: W.W. Norton. p. 270. ISBN   0393025004 . Retrieved 30 August 2024.
36. Campbell, Joseph (1968). The Masks Of God Vol. 04 Creative Mythology. United States: Penguin Books. p. 79. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
37. Pohanka, John J. (May 2010). Wagner the Mystic (First ed.). USA: The Wagner Society of Washington, D.C. ISBN   0615366481.
38. Hight, George Ainslie (1912). Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde": An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama. France. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
39. Barth, Mack & Voss 1975, p. 208.
40. "Sunday Morning – The Critics Part 3: Eduard Hanslick −06/11/2005". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
41. "San Francisco Symphony – Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde". San Francisco Symphony. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
42. Mander R. & Mitchenson J. (W.H. Allen, London, 1977), The Wagner Companion, p. 120.
43. 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.
44. Letter from Clara Schumann to Johannes Brahms, 23 October 1875; via Schumann-Brief-Datenbank / Neue Robert-Schumann-Gesamtausgabe (in German)
45. Millington 1992, p. 382.
46. Kennedy, Michael (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma, p. 67. Google Books
47. Goulding, Phil G. (16 March 2011). Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works. Random House Publishing Group. p. 148. ISBN   978-0-307-76046-3.
48. Nietzsche 1979, p. 61.
49. Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time ^{[ page needed ]}
50. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Proust as Musician. Cambridge, 1989^{[ page needed ]}
51. Brown, Principal Selections.
52. Holloway 1982, p. 367.
53. Blyth 1992, p. 65.
54. "On-line catalogue entry Tristan und Isolde DVD conducted by James Levine". Deutsche Grammophon. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
55. "Glyndebourne – Tristan und Isolde – Download". glyndebourne.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
56. Kenneth Birkin, Hans von Bülow: A Life for Music, p. 121
57. "Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Program Notes" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2013-03-30.
58. Newman, Ernest (1937). The Life of Richard Wagner, Volume 3: 1859–1866. Cambridge University Press. pp. 4–6. ISBN   978-1-108-00771-9.
59. Charles Suttoni, Introduction, Franz Liszt: Complete Piano Transcriptions from Wagner's Operas, Dover Publications
60. ABC Radio 24 Hours, February 2001, p. 113
61. Payne, Anthony (12 February 1994). "Greatest of late starters: Anthony Payne feasts on Chabrier". The Independent . Retrieved 19 November 2010.
62. Schott Aktuell Archived 14 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, p. 11, accessed 3 March 2012
63. Scott, Jonathan (2001). 'Sleeve notes' for Bridgewater Hall Organ (ASC CS CD42 ed.). ASC Records.
64. Hubbard, Tom (1998). Isolde's Luve-Daith: Poems in Scots and English (Pamphlet Poets Series No.8 ed.). Kirkcaldy: Akros. pp. 3–7. ISBN   0-86142-095-0.
65. Davidson, Lindsay. "Dr Tom Hubbard". Driving piping forward. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
66. live registration Knigge, Max, Vorspiel & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde arranged for string quartet & accordion
67. Schott Aktuell Archived 14 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, pp. 10–12, accessed 3 March 2012
68. Calloway, Stephen (1998). Aubrey Beardsley'. London: V & A Publications. p. 103.
69. "The Wagnerites". Victoria and Albert Museum. 1894. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
70. "Isolde". Victoria and Albert Museum. 1899. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
71. Quiroga, Horacio (2021). Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte. [Milano]. ISBN   979-12-208-5606-5. OCLC   1282638004.
72. Horacio Quiroga (1997). Cuentos de amor, de locura y de muerte. Internet Archive. Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0-14-026631-3.
73. Paglia, Camille (1998). The Birds. London: British Film Institute. p. 46. ISBN   0-85170-651-7.
74. Kaczmarczyk, Jeffrey (2015-01-31). "Many lovely moments in Grand Rapids Symphony's evening of music by Wagner". mlive. Retrieved 2023-03-06.
75. Wilker, Ulrich (2014). "Liebestod ohne Erlösung. Richard Wagners Tristan-Vorspiel in Lars von Triers Film Melancholia". In Börnchen, Stefan; Mein, Georg; Strowick, Elisabeth (eds.). Jenseits von Bayreuth. Richard Wagner Heute: Neue Kulturwissenschaftliche Lektüren. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink. pp. 263–273. ISBN   978-3-7705-5686-1.

Sources

• Barth, Herbert; Mack, Dietrich; Voss, Egon, eds. (1975). Wagner: A Documentary Study. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN   978-0-500-27399-9.
• Blyth, Alan (1992). Opera on CD: The Essential Guide to the Best CD Recordings of 100 Operas. London: Kyle Cathie. ISBN   978-1-85626-056-5.
• Brown, Jonathan. "Discography of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde 1901–2004".
• Classen, Albrecht (20 May 2003). "Tristan and Isolde (also known as Tristan and Iseult, Tristan and Isolt, Tristram)". The Literary Encyclopedia. ISSN   1747-678X.
• Deathridge, John (2008). Wagner Beyond Good and Evil. Berkeley: California University Press. ISBN   978-0-520-25453-4.
• Gregor-Dellin, Martin (1983). Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century. London: William Collins. ISBN   978-0-00-216669-0.
• Gutman, Robert W. (1990). Wagner – The Man, His Mind and His Music. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN   978-0-15-677615-8.
• Holloway, Robin (1982). "Tristan und Isolde". In Blyth, Alan (ed.). Opera on Record. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 363–375. ISBN   978-0-06-090910-9.
• Jander, Owen; Steane, J. B.; Forbes, Elizabeth (1992). "Mezzo-soprano". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera . London: Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-56159-228-9.
• Magee, Bryan (1983). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-824673-2.
• Magee, Bryan (2001). The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN   978-0-8050-6788-0.
• Millington, Barry, ed. (1992). The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN   978-0-500-28274-8.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1979). Ecce Homo . Translated by Roger Hollingdale. New York: Penguin. ISBN   978-0-14-044515-2.
• Vernon, David (2021). Disturbing the Universe: Wagner's Musikdrama. Edinburgh: Candle Row Press. ISBN   978-1527299245.
• Wagner, Richard (1911). My Life ((2 volumes; authorized English translation)). New York: Dodd, Mead. (Volume 1 and 2 at Google Books)
• Wagner, Richard (1981). Tristan and Isolde (English National Opera Guide). London: J. Calder. ISBN   978-0-7145-3849-5. (Includes libretto, English translation by Andrew Porter, introduction by John Luke Rose, and commentaries.)

Further reading

• Borchmeyer, Dieter (2003). Drama and the World of Richard Wagner. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-11497-2
• Chafe, Eric (2005). The Tragic and the Ecstatic: The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-517647-6.
• Fabinger, Carollina (2009). Tristano e Isotta. Una piccola storia sul destino e sull'amore eterno (illustrated version, in Italian). Milan: Nuages. ISBN   978-88-86178-90-7.
• Knapp, Raymond (February 1984). "The Tonal Structure of Tristan und Isolde: A Sketch". The Music Review. 45 (1): 11–25.
• Konrad, Ulrich (2012). "Commentary". In Ulrich Konrad (ed.). Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde. Autograph Score (Facsimile). Documenta musicologica. Vol. II/45. Kassel: Bärenreiter. pp. 1–17. ISBN   978-3-7618-2270-8.
• Gut, Serge (2014), Tristan et Isolde. Paris: Fayard. ISBN   978-2-213-68113-9.
• May, Thomas (2004). Decoding Wagner. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press. ISBN   978-1-57467-097-4.
• Scruton, Roger (2004). Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-516691-4.
• Wagner, Richard; Mottl, Felix, editor (1911 or slightly later). Tristan und Isolde (full score). Leipzig: C. F. Peters. Reprint by Dover (1973): ISBN   978-0-486-22915-7.

External links

• Tristan und Isolde. Wagner's autograph in the Richard Wagner Foundation
• Bilingual side by side German English Libretto Also available in Italian
• Wagner Operas. A comprehensive website featuring photographs of productions, recordings, librettos, and sound files.
• Richard Wagner – Tristan und Isolde. A gallery of historic postcards with motifs from Richard Wagner's operas.
• Recordings of Tristan and Isolde rated. Recordings reviewed by Geoffrey Riggs.
• Wagner's Tristan and Isolde BBC / Metropolitan Opera synopsis
• Tristan und Isolde resource site Comprehensive website containing source material and musical motives
• Seattle Opera Performance Seattle Opera link
• Free Online opera guide on Tristan und Isolde: An opera portrait with synopsis, commentary, music analysis, anecdotes