Tristan & Isolde

5 things to know about Tristan & Isolde

1° New beginnings

Tristan & Isolde ushered a new beginning for Wagner. Many would argue that it did for the genre of opera as a whole. Composed between 1857 and 1859, in the midst of his work on the Ring, it marked a departure from plot-driven romances towards metaphysical meditations on human existence itself. Friedrich Nietzsche would later call the opera the ‘opus metaphysicum of all art’.

Influenced by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, whose central work The World as Will and Representation inspired the conception of Tristan & Isolde, Wagner began to see life on earth as dominated by unfulfilled longing. Anecdotally, his own longing for his friend, the author and poet Mathilde Wesendock, whose husband Otto was his benefactor, remained similarly unfulfilled. She is considered as the opera’s other major inspiration.

2° The loveliest of all dreams

In a letter to his future father-in-law Franz Liszt dated 16 December 1854, Wagner wrote: ‘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.’

Love stories have been at the heart of opera for centuries before Wagner came along. Wagner’s version transcends their conventional scenario, elevating it into a profound philosophical exploration on the metaphysics of subjectivity and the union of souls and the mysteries of the natural world and what lies beyond.

3° Music, the initiator of all passions

Not only has Tristan & Isolde transcended the previously accepted limits of subjects, but its impact on the history of music was also lasting. Many would argue that the prelude’s opening chord, famously known as the Tristan chord, prompted the beginning of modern music as it introduced chromaticism and dissonance. Completely ignoring traditional tonal harmony, the chord refuses to resolve by finishing in another dissonant chord.

What fascinates La Monnaie’s music director Alain Altinoglu most as a conductor is ‘the innovative function of the orchestra in this opera’. He considers that ‘Tristan has the allure of a great symphonic poem, where the orchestra goes beyond the role of mere commentator or accompanist to become the initiator of all passions and their ambivalence. The birth, interaction and transformation of a few simple musical mother cells lead to a cosmic, universal and eternally modern masterpiece.’

4° A dreamlike world on stage

In La Monnaie’s production recorded almost exactly one year ago, on 17 May 2019, two German artists elaborate a common vision. The director Ralf Pleger hails from the word of theatre and film, while set designer Alexander Polzin is mostly known as a sculptor and painter. Jointly, they create a different scenic image for each act, which bears no direct connection to the plot but plunges the viewer into a dreamlike state. Such a visually minimalismist focusses all attention on the music and the libretto.

By erasing any concrete reference to the plot - no cup to be seen, hardly an allusion of a spear - it fades into the background and the passions become even more internalised, transcendent. The love scene in Act 2, for instance, is experienced by a motionless Tristan and Isolde, standing on a curious pile of white branches. When these ‘branches’ slowly start undulating in a sensual choreography, they perfectly mirror the lovers’ heart-rending contradictory emotions.

5° Intoxicating questions

The director Ralf Pleger interprets the love potion that Tristan and Isolde drink in Act 1 as a genuinely hallucinogenic substance opening new dimensions for them. Wagner’s music, which has often been described as intoxicating, clearly echoes how the potion enters the lovers’ bodies and transforms their consciousness. Pleger’s staging imagines the couple’s sensorial experience during this metaphysical trip. Accordingly, the scenic tableaux seem torn right out of a psychedelic dream. In Act 3, for example, a celestial background of lights and shadows is displayed behind the singers, extending their passions into the universe.

In the eyes of the director, the opera raises great questions about our origins and our destination. ‘In their opening of consciousness, are Tristan and Isolde able to see this other, perhaps deeper truth? Does their drunkenness give them this ‘universal clairvoyance’, as Wagner would later formulate it in Parsifal? What happens inside them when, in their great duet, they declare themselves to be the world? And above all, is love the answer?’