Tristan und Isolde

I just finished watching the second act of Tristan und Isolde, by Richard Wagner. I intended to watch the whole opera tonight but one of my housemates is really tired and the house, as one would expect, is not completely soundproof. I don't think he would be very pleased trying to fall asleep with a soprano screaming on the room next to his (I was watching the opera on the TV we have in the living room, and even with the volume close to the minimum, the music was still sounding really loudly).

The music is amazing, I was really impressed at how Wagner builds up the tension continually throughout the whole development of the opera. When Act I finished, I was left with a feeling of "I need to know what will happen next" even though we must admit that not much actually happens in the opera, since it is mainly composed by dialogues between the characters. They don't do anything, just talk between them, but the psychological drama(together with the unresolved musical tensions that dominate the harmonies in the orchestra) keeps you on the edge of your seat at least until the end of Act II (I haven't watched Act III, so we'll see how well everything comes to an end).

Waltraud Meier, who sings Isolde in the version I'm watching. 

I love the intensity of all her gestures, like in this photo.

The story is really simple, as well. Isolde, a member of the Irish nobility (I am assuming the princess of Ireland at the time, although I didn't understand that entirely) is being taken by Tristan to Cornwall to marry King Marke, his uncle. She remembers that Tristan (using a very clever alias, "Tantris") came to her not long ago, wounded and weak, asking her for refuge and help. Se cured him and later he came back, proud and strong, demanding to take her as King Marke's future wife. For her, this is a disgrace, since the King of Cornwall pays tribute to the King of Ireland, apparently. Also, because Tristan killed her future husband (whose name I forgot but I was something like Mordol, Moldor, Mordor - no, that's Lord of the Rings...) and sent her back his head, almost as a joke. So we can farily say that, at the beginning of the opera, Isolde pretty much hates Tristan and wants to kill him both to avenge her dead fiancé and to avoid the disgrace of marrying the King of Cornwall. At the end of the act, after one hour of talking about dishonour, revenge, death, blood, and the like, she tries to kill him by offering him a drink, which is supposed to be a deadly poison. She drinks too (thinking, I suppose, that thus she will commit suicide), not knowing that her maid didn't pour the poison in the cup, but a love potion. Isolde and Tristan fall in love. The rest of the opera is both of them dealing with the fact that they are in love, loving each other and suffering because they are not supposed to be in love, since Isolde is the King's wife and Tristan is supposed to be one of the King's most loyal knights. Of course, the King finds out about this affair and everything just collapses. I still don't know how it all will end, though, I hope I have time soon to finish watching it.

Isolde is healing "Tantris," in what looks like a movie

version. Unfortunately, I don't know much about it.

One of the things that surprised me the most was the intensity of the text. I knew beforehand Wagner's musical habilities, I really enjoy most of his music and I think he was a great composer. I also knew he wrote the libretti for his operas himself, which I find quite impressive, but I didn't expect it be as impressive as it was at least in this particular opera. The love duet at the beginning of Act II (which I could say lasts easily 30 minutes, although I'm not sure) is really dense and poetic. I think the two most important themes that I at least can recover from it are the idea of the "night" in a very St. John of the Cross way, but more linked to romantic love, and the concept of "Liebestod," the death in love. Night is portrayed, not as a fearful environment, as one would find in a horror film, but as a place of solace and comfort. A soothing atmosphere of silence and rest where the lovers enjoy each other, maybe both in the physical and in the spiritual way. Tristan and Isolde also see their love as a way of death. Death of the self, of the "me," and the birth of the "us." Isolde stresses the fact that now they are bound by the word "und" ("and"), they are no longer two separate entities, they are one.

Tristan and Yseult (1887) by Jean Delville

I also sensed a little bit of what I discussed at the end of my previous post, the fear of death. Isolde at some point seems frightful of the idea that the love between them might end, with the death of one of them (most likely Tristan, since he is a knight), but Tristan responds that, through death, their love can become immortal, but then Isolde knows that, for this to happen, she should die as well. At the end of Act II, she eagerly accepts to follow Tristan "to the dark land from which [his] mother sent [him]."

I leave you with one of my favorite fragments of this opera, the "Liebestod" aria. I believe this is taken from Act III, since I still haven't seen it in the version I'm watching, but it's one of the most famous parts. This version is by Jessye Norman (one of the most impressive sopranos I've ever heard), the video doesn't say which conductor or orchestra, I apologize for that.

P.S.: I just read a quote from Clara Schumann on Wikipedia, where she declared that this opera was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life." This was too amazing to leave out.