Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is a three-act music drama by Richard Wagner. The story is written in German by Wagner and is based on a medieval romance by Gottfried von Strassburg from the 12th century. Wagner first planned the work in 1854, and the music was written between 1857 and 1859. The opera premiered on June 10, 1865, in Munich, with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner preferred to call Tristan a "Handlung," which means "plot" or "action" in German, to describe its continuous storytelling style, which he called "endless melody." This style differs from traditional opera, which often includes short, dramatic scenes and solo songs called arias, which Wagner disliked.
Tristan und Isolde was influenced by the ideas of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and Wagner’s relationship with his muse, Mathilde Wesendonck. The opera explores deep themes, such as humanity’s endless desire and love that transcends death. It also includes spiritual ideas from Christian mysticism, as well as beliefs from Vedantic and Buddhist traditions, which interested Schopenhauer. Wagner was one of the first Western artists to use ideas from these religions in his work.
Tristan und Isolde is widely considered one of the greatest achievements in Western art music. It introduces philosophical ideas not often found in opera and uses a musical style described as "terrible and sweet infinity." The opera’s prelude begins with the famous "Tristan chord," which uses advanced harmony, many different musical notes, unclear musical keys, rich orchestral sounds, and long, unresolved harmonies. These innovations were controversial at first but later became very influential. The opera inspired composers like Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Benjamin Britten. Other composers, such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky, developed their own styles in response to Wagner’s musical ideas.
Composition history
In 1849, Wagner was forced to leave his job as conductor of the Dresden Opera because he was wanted for arrest due to his involvement in the failed May Revolution. He left his wife, Minna, in Dresden and fled to Zurich. There, in 1852, he met Otto Wesendonck, a wealthy silk trader who supported Wagner financially for several years. Otto’s wife, Mathilde, became very fond of Wagner. While working on his large-scale opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wagner became interested in the story of Tristan and Isolde.
The rediscovery of medieval German poetry, such as Gottfried von Strassburg’s version of Tristan, the Nibelungenlied, and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, greatly influenced German Romantic writers in the mid-1800s. The story of Tristan and Isolde is a classic example of medieval and Renaissance romance. Multiple versions of the tale exist, with the earliest dating to the middle of the 12th century. Gottfried’s version, part of the "courtly" tradition, had a major impact on German literature.
In his autobiography, Mein Leben, Wagner explained that he decided to dramatize the Tristan story after his friend Karl Ritter attempted to do so. This, along with his discovery of Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy in October 1854, led Wagner to feel a deep emotional state inspired by Schopenhauer’s ideas. He described this mood as the inspiration for creating Tristan und Isolde.
Wagner wrote about his focus on Schopenhauer and Tristan in a letter to Franz Liszt dated December 16, 1854. By the end of 1854, Wagner had outlined all three acts of the opera based on Gottfried von Strassburg’s version of the story. The earliest surviving sketches date to December 1856, but Wagner did not fully concentrate on the opera until August 1857, when he set aside work on Siegfried. On August 20, he began writing the prose sketch for the opera, and the libretto (or poem, as Wagner called it) was completed by September 18. Wagner had moved into a cottage on the grounds of Wesendonck’s villa, where he became deeply involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether this relationship was purely emotional is unclear. In September 1857, Wagner read the finished poem of Tristan to an audience that included Mathilde, Minna, and his future wife, Cosima von Bülow.
By October 1857, Wagner had begun composing the first act. In November, he set five of Mathilde’s poems to music, known today as the Wesendonck Lieder. This was unusual for Wagner, who rarely set other people’s poems to music. He called two of the songs—“Im Treibhaus” and “Träume”—“Studies for Tristan und Isolde.” “Träume” includes a musical theme later used in the love duet of Act 2, while “Im Treibhaus” introduces a melody that became the prelude to Act 3. Wagner only began writing Tristan after securing a publishing deal with the Leipzig firm Breitkopf & Härtel in January 1858. From then on, he completed each act and sent it for engraving before starting the next—a remarkable effort given the opera’s length and complexity.
In April 1858, Minna intercepted a note from Wagner to Mathilde and accused both men of infidelity, despite Wagner’s claims that she misunderstood the situation. After much conflict, Wagner convinced Minna, who had a heart condition, to rest at a spa while Otto Wesendonck took Mathilde to Italy. During their absence, Wagner began composing the second act of Tristan. Minna’s return in July 1858 did not resolve tensions, and on August 17, Wagner was forced to leave both Minna and Mathilde and move to Venice.
Wagner later described his final days in Zurich as “a real hell.” Before leaving, Minna wrote to Mathilde:
Wagner completed the second act of Tristan during his eight-month stay 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 wrote the final act, completing it in August 1859.
Tristan und Isolde was difficult to stage, and Wagner explored several venues for its premiere. In 1857, he was invited by a representative of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil to stage his operas in Rio de Janeiro, where he considered settling. He sent bound copies of his earlier works to the Emperor but no further plans materialized. He then proposed a premiere in Strasbourg, following interest from the Grand Duchess of Baden, but the project failed. He later considered Paris, the center of opera in the mid-1800s, but after a failed performance of Tannhäuser at the Paris Opéra, he offered the work to the Karlsruhe opera in 1861.
When Wagner visited the Vienna Court Opera to rehearse singers for this production, the management suggested staging the opera there. Originally, tenor Alois Ander was cast as Tristan but proved unable to learn the role. Attempts to stage the opera in Dresden, Weimar, and Prague also failed. Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, Tristan und Isolde could not be staged in Vienna, earning a reputation as unperformable.
Only after King Ludwig II of Bavaria became Wagner’s patron—providing financial support and other assistance—could enough resources be gathered for the premiere. Hans von Bülow was chosen to conduct the production at the Nationaltheater in Munich, despite Wagner’s relationship with his wife, Cosima von Bülow. The planned premiere on May 15, 1865, was postponed until Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, recovered from a sore throat. The opera finally premiered on June 10, 1865, with Malvina’s husband, Ludwig, performing as Tristan.
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Performance history
The next performance of Tristan was in Weimar in 1874. Wagner managed another performance in Berlin in March 1876. However, the opera was first performed in Wagner’s own theater at the Bayreuth Festival only after his death. Cosima Wagner, his wife, managed the highly praised production in 1886.
The first performance outside Germany took place at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1882. The opera was performed by Hermann Winkelmann, who later that year sang the lead role in Parsifal at Bayreuth. Hans Richter conducted the performance in London. He also conducted the first production at Covent Garden two years later. Winkelmann performed the role of Tristan for the first time in Vienna in 1883. The first performance in America was at the Metropolitan Opera on December 1, 1886. Albert Niemann and Lilli Lehmann performed in the opera, and Anton Seidl conducted it.
Significance in the development of Western music
Harold C. Schonberg wrote: "The opening chords of Tristan were as important to the second half of the nineteenth century as Beethoven's Eroica and Ninth Symphonies were to the first half—a major change, a new idea. In Tristan, harmony is stretched to its limits, and twentieth-century scholars see in the opera the start of atonality, which means music without traditional keys." Wagner used a wide variety of orchestral colors, harmony, and multiple melodies, with a freedom not often seen in his earlier operas. The first chord in the piece, called the Tristan chord, is very important in moving away from traditional harmony, as it resolves to another dissonant chord.
The opera is known for expanding harmonic practices in many ways. One key change is the frequent use of two consecutive chords containing tritones (a specific type of dissonant interval, such as F–B or E–A♯). Neither of these chords is a diminished seventh chord. Tristan und Isolde is also notable for its use of harmonic suspension, a technique that creates musical tension through prolonged, unresolved cadences that build desire and expectation for resolution. Suspension has been used since before the Renaissance, but Wagner was one of the first composers to use it throughout an entire work. The cadences introduced in the prelude are not resolved until the finale of Act 3. At times, Wagner builds tension with a series of chords leading to a climax, only to delay the resolution. An example occurs at the end of the love duet in Act 2 ("Wie sie fassen, wie sie lassen…"), where Tristan and Isolde approach a musical climax, but the expected resolution is interrupted by Kurwenal ("Rette Dich, Tristan!"). Full resolution happens only at the end, after Isolde sings the famous "Liebestod" ("Love-Death"), after which she falls onto Tristan's body, "as if transfigured," and dies.
Claude Debussy was deeply influenced by Wagner, especially Tristan. Early works, like Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), show Tristan-inspired tonality. However, Debussy later moved away from Wagner's style. Many see his opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) as a French response to Tristan. Aaron Copland noted that Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (1899) is "clearly inspired by Tristan," showing a shift away from traditional harmony rules. Alban Berg honored Tristan in his Lyric Suite and his opera Lulu (1929–1937). Wagner's use of chromaticism, or the inclusion of many different notes in a scale, influenced the development of film music.
Instrumentation
The musical composition Tristan und Isolde uses the following instruments:
3 flutes, with one flute player also playing the piccolo; 2 oboes; 1 cor anglais; 2 clarinets; 1 bass clarinet; 3 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; 1 bass tuba; timpani; cymbals; triangle; harp; 1st and 2nd violins; violas; violoncellos; and double basses. Wagner’s original score includes the instruction: “The string instruments are to be excellently chosen in both number and quality.”
The composition also includes 1 cor anglais, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, and 3 trombones.
Synopsis
Isolde, promised to King Marke in marriage, and her handmaid, Brangäne, are staying on Marke's nephew Tristan's ship as they travel to Marke's lands in Cornwall. A young sailor sings about a "wild Irish maid" ("Westwärts schweift der Blick"), which Isolde believes is a mocking reference to herself. In an angry outburst, she wishes the sea to rise and sink the ship, killing herself and everyone on board ("Erwache mir wieder, kühne Gewalt"). Her anger is directed at Tristan, the knight responsible for taking her to Marke, and she sends Brangäne to tell Tristan to appear before her ("Befehlen liess' dem Eigenholde"). Tristan refuses, saying his place is at the ship's helm. His henchman, Kurwenal, responds more harshly, stating Isolde has no right to command Tristan and reminding Brangäne that Isolde's fiancé, Morold, was killed by Tristan ("Herr Morold zog zu Meere her").
Brangäne returns to Isolde and tells her about Tristan's refusal. Isolde then shares a story, called the "narrative and curse," about how, after Morold died, she met a stranger named Tantris, who was found mortally wounded in a small boat ("von einem Kahn, der klein und arm"). Isolde used her healing powers to save him, but later discovered he was actually Tristan, Morold's murderer. She tried to kill Tristan with his own sword, but he looked into her eyes ("Er sah' mir in die Augen") and she could not go through with it. Tristan left under the condition that he would never return, but he came back to take Isolde to Marke. Furious, Isolde forces Tristan to drink a potion from her medicine chest. Brangäne is shocked to see it is a deadly poison.
Kurwenal enters the women's quarters ("Auf auf! Ihr Frauen!") and announces the journey is ending. Isolde warns Kurwenal that she will not meet Marke unless Tristan first drinks the potion as she requested. When Tristan arrives, Isolde scolds him for his betrayal and says he owes her his life because she blessed Morold's weapons before battle and swore revenge. Tristan offers his sword, but Isolde refuses, insisting they drink the potion. Brangäne brings the potion, which Tristan knows could kill him because of Isolde's powers ("Wohl kenn' ich Irlands Königin"). Tristan drinks, and Isolde takes half the potion. Instead of dying, the potion causes intense love ("Tristan!" "Isolde!"). Kurwenal interrupts, announcing King Marke's arrival. Isolde asks Brangäne what potion she prepared, and Brangäne reveals it was a love potion, not poison.
King Marke leads a hunting party into the night, leaving Isolde and Brangäne alone in the castle. A torch burns at Isolde's door. Listening to the hunting horns, Isolde believes the party is far away and extinguishes the torch, the signal for Tristan to join her ("Nicht Hörnerschall tönt so hold"). Brangäne warns that Melot, one of Marke's knights, has seen Tristan and Isolde's secret love and suspects their passion ("Ein Einz'ger war's, ich achtet' es wohl"). Isolde thinks Melot is Tristan's loyal friend and, in a rush of desire, puts out the flame. Brangäne goes to the ramparts to watch as Tristan arrives.
The lovers, finally alone and free from court life, declare their love. Tristan says daylight is false and that only in the night can they be together, and only in death can they be united forever ("O sink' hernieder, Nacht der Liebe"). Brangäne repeatedly warns that the night is ending ("Einsam wachend in der Nacht"), but the lovers ignore her. As dawn breaks, Melot leads Marke and his men to find Tristan and Isolde together. Marke is heartbroken, not only from Tristan's betrayal but also because Melot betrayed Tristan ("Mir – dies? Dies, Tristan – mir?").
Tristan says he cannot explain his betrayal to Marke because Marke would not understand. He turns to Isolde, who agrees to join him in the realm of night. Tristan reveals Melot also loves Isolde. A fight breaks out between Melot and Tristan, but Tristan throws his sword aside, allowing Melot to stab him.
Kurwenal brings Tristan home to his castle in Brittany. A shepherd plays a sad tune and asks if Tristan is awake. Kurwenal says only Isolde's arrival can save Tristan, and the shepherd promises to play a joyful tune when her ship arrives. Tristan wakes ("Die alte Weise – was weckt sie mich?") and laments being trapped in the false world of daylight, driven by unending longing ("Wo ich erwacht' weilt ich nicht"). Kurwenal tells Tristan Isolde is coming, and Tristan is overjoyed. He asks if her ship is in sight, but only the shepherd's sad tune is heard.
Tristan collapses again, recalling the shepherd's tune is the one played when he learned of his parents' deaths ("Muss ich dich so versteh'n, du alte, ernst Weise"). He curses the love potion ("verflucht sei, furchtbarer Trank!") until he falls into a delirium. The shepherd plays a tune signaling Isolde's ship, and Kurwenal rushes to meet her. Tristan tears his bandages off in excitement ("Hahei! Mein Blut, lustig nun fliesse!"). As Isolde arrives, Tristan dies with her name on his lips.
Isolde collapses beside Tristan as another ship is spotted. Kurwenal sees Melot, Marke, and Brangäne arriving ("Tod und Hölle! Alles zur Hand!") and believes they have come to kill Tristan. He attacks Melot in a rage. Marke tries to stop the fight but fails. Both Melot and Kurwenal are killed. Marke and Brangäne reach Tristan and Isolde. Grieving over his "truest friend" ("Tot denn alles!"), Marke explains that Brangäne told him about the love potion and that he has come to unite the lovers ("Warum Isolde, warum mir das?"). Isolde seems to wake and, in a final song describing her vision of Tristan rising again ("Liebestod," "love death"), dies ("Mild und leise wie er lächelt").
Influences
In 1854, Wagner read Schopenhauer's book, The World as Will and Representation. This book deeply influenced him and led him to rethink his spiritual and artistic beliefs. Schopenhauer believed that life was filled with suffering and that the "Will" was the driving force behind all existence. He also thought music was the highest form of art because it could express the Will directly. Wagner was inspired by these ideas and created operas such as Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. These works include themes from Schopenhauer's philosophy and focus heavily on music, unlike Wagner's earlier ideas in The Artwork of the Future (1849), where he believed music, poetry, and drama should be equal parts of a unified art form.
In Tristan und Isolde, Wagner gave music a central role, especially in the opera's most complex sections. He wrote some music for the opera before finishing the story, or libretto. The music reflects Schopenhauer's idea of the Will as a force that is always restless and never satisfied. Wagner used unresolved musical tension and unusual scales to show this endless longing. Only at the end, when Isolde experiences a transformation called "Love-Death," does the music finally resolve. The music is often described as "sensual" and "erotic," which matches the intense emotions of the lovers and Schopenhauer's belief that sexual desire is the strongest expression of the Will.
In the second act of the opera, Wagner uses day and night as symbols. Day represents the outside world of rules, duties, and society, where Tristan and Isolde must hide their love. Night symbolizes the inner world of truth, love, and freedom, where they can express their feelings without limits. However, Night is also linked to death, as true unity and fulfillment can only be achieved beyond the physical world. Wagner compared Day to the visible world, or "phenomenon," and Night to the hidden reality, or "noumenon," as described by Schopenhauer.
In the years before 1857, when Wagner focused on Tristan und Isolde, he was deeply interested in spiritual ideas. In 1855, he studied Indian religions, reading books by Eugène Burnouf and Adolf Holtzmann. This period also led to the creation of two more operas: Die Sieger, based on the life of a Buddhist monk, and Parsifal, inspired by a medieval poem about a holy quest. Wagner had already been interested in Eastern mysticism, including Islamic and Persian poetry, before reading Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's writings about Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart further increased Wagner's fascination with spiritual ideas.
In the first act of Tristan und Isolde, Tristan and Isolde drink a potion that reveals the illusions of the material world and the truth of the spiritual realm. Tristan praises the potion in the second act, saying it has opened his eyes to the "wondrous realm of Night." He rejects the false world of Day and longs for the "Holy Night," where true love exists. This is shown in the "Liebesnacht" ("O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe") duet, where Tristan and Isolde promise to seek eternal love and wish for death as the ultimate union. The music reaches powerful, mystical moments where they imagine merging into one being and experiencing "supreme love."
These themes of spiritual longing are similar to ideas in Christian mysticism, such as the "unio mystica," where the soul unites with the divine. The characters' pursuit of love beyond the physical world also reflects the Sufi concept of "fana," the loss of the self in the presence of the divine.
In the final scene, Isolde's "Love-Death" includes references to Hindu and Buddhist ideas. The German word Atem (breath) is related to the Sanskrit word Ātman (soul). Isolde's peaceful death is linked to the Buddhist idea of Nirvana, even though Schopenhauer and Wagner misunderstood it as a state of non-being. Isolde's final words describe sinking into a state of bliss: "To drown… to sink… unconscious… supreme bliss!"
Wagner scholar John Pohanka noted that Wagner's operas not only include spiritual ideas but also create powerful, transformative experiences for listeners. Because of Schopenhauer's influence and the opera's tragic ending, many people have described Tristan und Isolde as "pessimistic." British scholar George Ainslie Hight wrote about this in 1912.
Reactions
Tristan und Isolde is now considered a classic, but people first had negative opinions about it. In the July 5, 1865, issue of Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, critics wrote about their dislike for the opera.
In 1868, Eduard Hanslick described the Tristan prelude as "like an old Italian painting of a martyr [Erasmus of Formia] whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel." In 1882, the first performance in London’s Drury Lane Theatre received this comment from The Era:
During a visit to Germany, Mark Twain heard Tristan at Bayreuth and said: "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."
Clara Schumann wrote that Tristan was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life."
Over time, Tristan’s reputation improved. Before his death, Giuseppe Verdi said he "stood in wonder and terror" before Tristan. In The Perfect Wagnerite, George Bernard Shaw wrote that Tristan is "an astonishingly intense and faithful translation into music of the emotions which accompany the union of a pair of lovers" and called it "a poem of destruction and death." Initially, Richard Strauss dismissed Tristan, saying Wagner’s music "would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of [its] hideous discords." Later, Strauss joined the Bayreuth group and wrote to Cosima Wagner in 1892: "I have conducted my first Tristan. It was the most wonderful day of my life." In 1935, Strauss told Joseph Gregor, one of his librettists, that Tristan was "the end of all romanticism, as it brings into focus the longing of the entire 19th century."
Vincent d’Indy wrote that Emmanuel Chabrier wept upon hearing the opening: "I’ve been waiting for ten years of my life for that A on the ‘cellos." Debussy parodied the opening in his ragtime-infused piano piece Golliwog’s Cakewalk (1911), instructing the passage to be played "avec une grande emotion." Maurice Ravel parodied the Love Duet in the Duo miaulé in his opera L’enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (1925), sung by two cats.
The conductor Bruno Walter heard his first Tristan in 1889 as a student:
Arnold Schoenberg called Wagner’s shifting harmonies in Tristan "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." Harold C. Schonberg compared Tristan to Schoenberg’s Erwartung (1924): "Tristan und Isolde is full of night and day symbolism, and so is Erwartung. Tristan und Isolde ends with a ‘love-death,’ and so does Erwartung. When the woman finds her dead lover in the Schoenberg opera, she sings a long passage that in effect is nothing less than a ‘Liebestod.’ Through Schoenberg’s new language something very traditional can be felt."
Friedrich Nietzsche, who was once a close friend of Wagner, wrote that, for him, "Tristan 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 an 1868 letter to his friend Erwin Rohde, 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 considered Tristan a masterpiece: "Even now I am still in search of a work that exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan – I have sought in vain, in every art."
T. S. Eliot quotes Tristan in The Wasteland (1922). James Joyce made numerous references to it in Finnegans Wake (1939). The line "three quarks for Muster Mark!" refers to King Marke, in a song sung by seagulls.
Greatly influenced by Wagner, Marcel Proust refers to Tristan 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."
Recordings
Tristan und Isolde has a long history of recordings. Since the end of World War I, many important conductors of Richard Wagner’s operas have had their performances recorded on discs. Before the 1930s, recording technology was not advanced enough to capture the full opera, but shorter parts of the opera were recorded as early as 1901. These early recordings were made on cylinders called Mapleson Cylinders during performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
Before World War II, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior were the most famous singers for the main roles in Tristan und Isolde. Recordings of their performances, made in single-channel sound, exist from live shows conducted by artists such as Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky, and Erich Leinsdorf. Flagstad only made a commercial recording of her role near the end of her career in 1952, under Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI. This recording is now considered a classic.
After the war, a famous recording from 1952 was made at the Bayreuth Festival. It featured Martha Mödl and Ramón Vinay in the lead roles, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. This performance is noted for its strong and clear portrayals of characters and is now available as a live recording. In the 1960s, soprano Birgit Nilsson became the leading singer for Isolde. She often performed with Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan. Their 1966 performance at Bayreuth, conducted by Karl Böhm, was recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and is often praised as one of the best recordings of the opera.
Herbert von Karajan did not officially record the opera until 1971–72. His choice of a lighter soprano voice (Helga Dernesch) for Isolde, paired with the intense singing of Jon Vickers, and his unusual balance between orchestra and singers, caused debate. In the 1980s, recordings by conductors like Carlos Kleiber, Reginald Goodall, and Leonard Bernstein were valued more for the conductors’ interpretations than the singers’. Kleiber’s recording is notable because it features Margaret Price as Isolde, a soprano known for singing Mozart roles but never performed Isolde on stage. Similarly, Plácido Domingo sang Tristan in a 2005 EMI recording under Antonio Pappano, despite never performing the role on stage. In recent years, notable recordings include a studio version by Daniel Barenboim with the Berlin Philharmonic and a live performance at the Vienna Staatsoper conducted by Christian Thielemann.
Several DVD versions of the opera exist. These include a production by Götz Friedrich at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, featuring René Kollo and Dame Gwyneth Jones in the lead roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a Metropolitan Opera performance with Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted by James Levine, and a DVD of the 1993 Bayreuth Festival production with Daniel Barenboim conducting and Waltraud Meier and Siegfried Jerusalem in the lead roles. More recently, Barenboim’s production at La Scala, Milan, directed by Patrice Chéreau, was also released on DVD. A historically important but technically flawed video recording from a 1973 live performance at the Théâtre antique d’Orange, featuring Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers, conducted by Karl Böhm, is also available.
In 2009, the British opera house Glyndebourne became the first to offer a complete digital video download of Tristan und Isolde for purchase online. The performance featured 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 conducting. It was recorded on August 1 and 6, 2007.
A typical performance of Tristan und Isolde lasts about 3 hours and 50 minutes.
Concert extracts and arrangements
The Prelude and Liebestod is a concert version of the overture and Isolde's act 3 aria, "Mild und leise." Wagner created this arrangement, and it was first performed in 1862, several years before the full opera premiered in 1865. The "Liebestod" can be played either as an orchestral piece or with a soprano singing Isolde's vision of Tristan being brought back to life.
The first public performance of the prelude and its famous "Tristan chord" happened on 12 March 1859 in Prague at a charity concert for poor medical students. The concert was conducted by Hans von Bülow, who added his own ending for the event. Wagner allowed this ending but later disliked it and wrote his own version. Wagner later included the prelude in his own concerts at the Paris Théâtre-Italien in January–February 1860.
Wagner called the prelude "Liebestod" (Love-death) and Isolde's final aria "Mild und leise" "Verklärung" (Transfiguration). In 1867, Wagner’s father-in-law, Franz Liszt, made a piano version of "Mild und leise," which he named "Liebestod" (S.447). Liszt added a short musical phrase from the love duet in act 2 to his score. Liszt’s version became widely known in Europe before Wagner’s opera reached many places. Liszt revised his transcription in 1875.
Wagner wrote a concert ending for the act 2 love duet for a planned 1862 concert that never happened. The music was lost until 1950, then kept privately before being shared with Daniel Barenboim, who passed it to Sir Antonio Pappano. The first recording of the Love Duet with the concert ending was made in 2000, featuring Plácido Domingo, Deborah Voigt, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Pappano.
Chabrier used themes from Tristan in a quadrille called Souvenirs de Munich. These were expanded and arranged by Markus Lehmann in 1988. Leopold Stokowski created orchestral versions of Wagner’s operas during his time with the Philadelphia Orchestra, introducing audiences in the 1920s and 1930s to music they might not have heard otherwise. He made a long version of Tristan and Isolde that included the act 1 prelude, the Liebesnacht from act 2, and the Liebestod from act 3. A shorter version of music from acts 2 and 3 was called "Love Music from Tristan and Isolde." Stokowski recorded both versions on 78s and LPs.
British composer Ronald Stevenson created two arrangements based on the opera. The first, The Fugue on the Shepherd's Air from Tristan und Isolde (1999), was inspired by a lecture by Derek Watson, to whom the piece is dedicated. Stevenson combined the Shepherd’s Air and Isolde’s "Liebestod" in a complex musical climax. The second arrangement sets lines from Tom Hubbard’s 1998 poem Isolde’s Luve-Daith for voices and organ. The premiere took place in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, in March 2003.
In 2022, Edition Peters published an arrangement of Prelude und Liebestod for chamber ensemble (12 or 13 musicians).
Electronic composer Paul Lansky used parts of Tristan in his work Mild und Lise (1972). This was sampled by Radiohead on Kid A (2000).
Other works based on the opera include:
• Clément Doucet’s piano rags Isoldina and Wagneria
• Hans Werner Henze’s Tristan: Préludes für Klavier, Tonbänder und Orchester (1973)
• Peter Schickele’s Last Tango in Bayreuth from Music for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion (1992)
• Henk de Vlieger’s Tristan und Isolde: an orchestral passion (1994)
• Enjott Schneider’s six-minute paraphrase Der Minuten-Tristan (1996), originally for 12 pianists at six pianos
• Max Knigge’s arrangement of Prelude und Liebestod for string quartet and accordion, written for the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (2021)
• Volker David Kirchner’s Nachtstück (1980–83) for viola and chamber orchestra
• Franz Waxman’s Fantasy based on themes from the opera for violin and orchestra
In popular culture
Aubrey Beardsley’s pen and ink drawing The Wagnerites shows neatly dressed men and women attending a performance of Tristan und Isolde. The drawing was first published in The Yellow Book, volume III, in October 1894. According to Stephen Calloway, Beardsley had a strong interest in Wagner and often attended performances of his works in London. This image of the Wagnerian audience, rather than the opera’s action shown by the fallen program labeled Tristan and Isolde, is considered one of Beardsley’s greatest works in his dark style. Sickert reportedly warned Beardsley that drawings with more black than white would fail artistically and convinced him of this rule. However, Beardsley did not follow this advice. The drawing is now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The following year, Beardsley created a print of a stylized 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 corner, the word ISOLDE is written. This image was first printed in color (red, green, grey, and black) as a supplement to The Studio in October 1895. The black-and-white version is also in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The opera Tristan und Isolde serves as the background for Horacio Quiroga’s story “La muerte de Isolda” (The Death of Isolde), from his collection Cuentos de amor, locura y de muerte (1917).
Luis Buñuel included the Liebestod (the love death) in his surrealist films Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930). Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) strongly resembles the Liebestod, especially during the scene where characters recognize one another. In The Birds (1963), a recording of Tristan is shown when Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) tells Melanie (Tippi Hedren) about her unrequited love for Mitch. For Camille Paglia, the visual use of the LP cover, which reflects the opera’s theme of love leading to self-destruction, suggests that Annie is a lonely romantic.
Dalit Warshaw’s piano and orchestra concerto Conjuring Tristan uses musical themes from the opera to reinterpret the story of Thomas Mann’s Tristan, as told through Wagner’s music. Warshaw was inspired by Mann’s portrayal of a former pianist whose love for music is rekindled by the opera’s score.
François Girard’s film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) includes a scene of a young Glenn Gould listening to Toscanini conducting the Prelude. Lars von Trier’s 2011 film Melancholia prominently features music from the Prelude.