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Tristan und Isolde
Summary and libretto
Tristan und Isolde is one of the most important operas ever written on account of its
magnificent score and the contribution it made to the evolution of present-day music.
It was first given at the Munich Court Theatre in 1865. The libretto, like those of all
Wagner's operas, is by the composer himself. His source was a medieval poem by
Gottfried von Strassburg (c. 1210), inspired in turn by a Celtic legend about the tragic
love affair of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner's own liaison with Matilde Wesendonk
(1857-1859) and his reading of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation
are considered to have had a decisive impact on the opera's composition.
Tristan, who was once cured of his wounds by Isolde, the daughter of the Queen of
Ireland, has now been sent to Ireland by his uncle and protector King Marke of
Cornwall to ask for the princess's hand on the latter's behalf. The curtain rises to
reveal the scene on board the ship in which Tristan is bringing Isolde back to
Cornwall. The princess has brought poison with her, intending to avenge the death of
her fiancé Marold, who was killed in combat by Tristan, but her servant Brangäne
replaces it by a love potion, which reveals and unleashes Tristan and Isolde's hidden
passion for one another. Act II includes one of the most extraordinary scenes of
amorous ecstasy in the history of opera. But King Marke's unexpected return catches
the lovers unawares and Tristan is severely wounded by Melot, one of his knights. In
Act III Tristan and his friend Kurwenal, who has taken him to his castle at Kareaol in
Brittany, await the ship that is to bring Isolde, the only one who can heal him. She
arrives just in time to gather Tristan into her arms before he expires. King Marke, now
willing to forgive the lovers, also arrives. But the Bretons put up resistance. Kurwenal
kills Melot and is mortally wounded himself. Isolde, already beyond this world, sings
her extraordinary Liebestod ("death from love") as she is engulfed in the night of
death, which alone can reunite her with Tristan.
The love between Tristan and Isolde is so immense that no law can contain it −
neither the subject's duty to his lord nor the moral sense of the sanctity of marriage −
and herein lies the essential grandeur of the tale. So all-consuming is this passion that
the lovers' painful awareness of the harm it may cause and their conviction that the
outcome will be misery and even death − which indeed is to prove their sole refuge −
are powerless against it. The sole objective of Wagner's music is to portray this love.
Thus the action is reduced to the bare essentials, while the key aspects of the drama
are related by the music. In Tristan und Isolde our attention is riveted on the
protagonists' feelings and the plot becomes a mere leading thread to support the
emotions conveyed by Wagner's magnificent music. This same music transforms the
love between the two characters into the quintessential expression of universal love.