TRISTAN UND ISOLDE:
RICHARD WAGNER's
monument to love, the most emotionally-charged piece of music
ever written, a love song from beginning to end.
The plot is simple - Tristan meets Isolde and takes her to be
his uncle's wife. But they have fallen so deeply in love. He gets
wounded; he dies. And she dies after him - a love-death..
The opera is complex: it lifts eroticism to the realm of the soul;
it is about subjugation of the will, and the suppression of the
ego as the path to transcendent love; it defines death as the
end of separation, as life transfigured into a state of perfect
bliss.
And it is all there - in the text but most especially in the,
oh! so beautiful music.
Shown here
are curtain call photos from the production of Munich's historic
Prinzregententheater, conducted by Lorin Maazel, with Jon Fredric
West as Tristan, Hildegard Behrens as Isolde and Hanna Schwarz
as Brangäne. Also shown are a couple of photos from
earlier productions of the Bavarian State Opera.
ISOLDE
is one of the most challenging roles in the dramatic repertory.
And for Hildegard Behrens, a most cherished role, one that invites
continual refinement, perhaps because the opera is a drama of the
soul, and Isolde is all about transcendent love. Indeed, even today
she discovers new ideas that enlighten her interpretation of the
role which defined her as a Wagnerian soprano early in her career:
"an
Isolde to challenge the greatest in the past."
She first sang
the role at the Zurich Opera in 1980 to great critical acclaim and
has since taken it to the world's major opera houses.
When in 1981 the great American conductor Leonard Bernstein decided
it was time to record Tristan und Isolde, for him "the
central work of all music history, the hub of the wheel...."
he chose Hildegard Behrens for his Isolde. By all accounts "their
partnership was one of the most thrilling sights ever witnessed
on a concert platform." Upon completion of the recording, Bernstein
exclaimed: "My life is complete. I don't care what happens after
this. It is the finest thing I've ever done."
