Tristan und Isolde

Across a darkening sea, a lone ship carries a dutiful knight and an unwilling bride. Sir Tristan is escorting Princess Isolde to marry King Marke of Cornwall. But the pair have a history of their own, and in the depths of despair they discover a passion stronger than honour, social convention, and even life itself. “Since I have never in my life enjoyed the true happiness of love, I shall erect a monument to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from beginning to end, love will be absolutely fulfilled,” said Richard Wagner, and in his operatic retelling of the old Arthurian romance of Tristan und Isolde (1865), he did exactly that. In the process, he embraced the philosophy of Schopenhauer and practically redefined the sound of Western music. The opera’s prelude begins with a quiet, wordless question and an unresolved answer (the so-called “Tristan chord”), and over its epic, three-act span, the lovers experience both unimagined ecstasy and unimaginable suffering. A sense of boundless yearning permeates every note, to be resolved only in the transcendent final “Liebestod”. Hugely influential, intensely beautiful, and asking profound (and still dangerous) questions about the destructive power of a love without limits, Tristan und Isolde can be both troubling and utterly transporting. Many listeners find that it sinks deep into their subconscious, indelible, intoxicating and impossible to ignore.