[DavidA]

For more recent recordings this one is a classic despite the fact that hate Domingo for Wagner singing:

View attachment 63761

As Tristan is about half the opera that must spoil it for you somewhat!

 

[DavidA]

I put on the prelude this afternoon conducted by Furtwangler. Yes, the power of the music is pretty overwhelming.

Versions I have:
Karajan 1952 is an overwhelming experience white hot live with Modl and Vinay and Hotter terrific. the recording is, of course, dated. But to me this is the best performance.

Furtwangler has to be heard for the conducting although Flagstad was frankly a bit past it by that stage.

Bohm is too monochromatic for my taste - too little light and shade and Windgassen sounds very thin. Nilsson's power has to be heard but you can't love her.

Kleiber is a bit of a microphone job but who cares? It blows the cobwebs off and Price is a stunning Isolde even if Kollo is very rough round the edges.

Karajan / BPO is a marvel of orchestral playing but there are decidedly odd balances. Karajan is as different from his live version as can be. Vickers is absolutely superb and I can actually love Dernech's Isolde although that has come in for much criticism. To me she sounds very much like Modl on Karajan 1.

So not a perfect Tristan available on CD which is not a surprise as it probably doesn't exist.

 

[DavidA]

Isolde dies properly in the Kollo/Jones/Friedrich DVD, collapsing upon Tristan's dead body at the end.

Of course it is not clear whether this is due to the inextricable bond of love between them, or simply old age (Gwyneth Jones well past her prime here).

As at least two conductorsx have died while conducting it, it's no wonder Isolde dies while singng it!

 

[DavidA]

Roger Scruton is a professional philosopher as is Bryan Magee, both of whom wrote books on Wagner. I've read Magee's The Tristan Chord although I've never read Scruton's book on Wagner (I just placed an order for it though on Amazon; and I thank Wooduck for mentioning it).

When I was first getting into reading philosophy as a teenager, I always appreciated the fair and balanced exegesis of Scruton when approaching the major philosophers (so unlike, say, Bertrand Russell, who notoriously short shrifts anyone he disagrees with in his History of Western Philosophy).

So, all said, Scruton and Wagner himself are pretty weighty arguments in favor of the fact that Isolde actually dies at the end of the opera; that is to say, aside from the logic of the libretto itself.

Does it really matter whether or not she dies in the end? The opera is over anyway as we've run out of words and music! Or as Bugs Bunny said, "What do you expect in opera? A happy ending?"

 

[DavidA]

Oh yes, supremely so!: Two star-crossed lovers who won't let anything stand in their way- come what may- so that they can be together?

What could be more beautiful than that?

Well, of course, they could have lived happily ever after!

 

[DavidA]

They could have, but then that would take Tristan und Isolde from the realm of real life into the realm of fairy tale. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE fairy tales- its just that what touches me most sublimely is verisimilitude in art- and Tristan is just that.

In the real world, just as this opera shows, just as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette shows, and just as, say, Nietzsche's On the Birth of Tragedy and Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks all show- real heroism and real love of others and of life itself is giving it your all- on your own terms- regardless of the consequences that may ensue.

This is why Tristan and Romeo and Juliette touch me in a way that Swan Lake, Hans Christian Anderson, and Sleeping Beauty (gorgeous as they are) never can.

Real life? How many love potions have you drunk recently?

 

[DavidA]

Ironically, the ending would have been much less satisfying if this had happened. It is the fact that Tristan dies that inspires Isolde's Liebestod, the most joyful moment in the opera. Greater darkness gives birth to greater joy.

But this is not real life. If you've sat by a bedside comforting a grieving spouse when their loved one passes (or has past) away you know death us not a joyful, romantic experience except in the imagination of poets.

 

[DavidA]

Biologically, there is an erotic element to death for a few people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_during_consensual_sex

Yes but as Tristan is dead they are not having sex!

 

[DavidA]

real people in old times believed in potions.

They might have done but such things did not exist!

 

[DavidA]

And sometimes they die cause they love them so much.
connection.........

Not in my experience. In any case, there is nothing romantic about it. Tristan is simply not real life! It is fiction and must be discussed in those terms. Like most opera.

 

[DavidA]

Oh come on, show a little historical awareness. This is the middle ages. People believed in such things. It would have been some herbal mixture, and it hardly matters what was in it. Tristan and Isolde thought they were taking poison. They expected to die, the ship had docked, King Marke was due to greet them and claim his bride, the pressure to get it over with and end their hopeless situation was intense. And then - OMG! - they didn't die. So there they stood, having in effect confessed the love they'd been holding in all this time, expecting to die together, and finding themselves gazing into each other's eyes. So what could they do?

Love potion? No, just time to admit the truth. Psychologically, that's pretty damned real.

Historical awareness? Only in fiction!

Ever known that happen outside the movies? I haven't! Real? Only to the hopeless romantic!

I'm quite happy to enter the spirit of the opera but let no-one say this is real life any more than Fred Aistair and Ginger Rogers musicals are. Sorry! It's romantic fiction through and through!

 

[DavidA]

I agree with Woodduck. Today new mix is going to be Love Potion No. 9. Except that Isolde is now played by the great Sandra Bullock.

As I said, it doesn't happen outside the movies!

 

[DavidA]

I didn't say that the story is not fiction. I said that it is "psychologically realistic" for Tristan and Isolde, given their horrible circumstances, to confess their feelings openly when they drink what they think is poison but find that it isn't. It isn't the business of art to be as random and boring as "real life," but to be true to life and human nature in a deeper sense. Here Wagner takes what in the original sources was a literally impossible occurrence - the creation, by means of a magical potion, of love between two people who lacked any such feelings - and finds a very real basis for both that love and the manner in which it is repressed and finally revealed and confessed. The fact Wagner's next door neighbors were unlikely to have lived the lives of a medieval knight and princess, but probably met at the factory or at a church supper, fortunately did not place the sort of limits on his ability to imagine other times and places and to empathize with what people in those other cultures, people with beliefs and practices alien to his own time, might experience, as it seems to place on yours. The words and actions of Tristan and Isolde in Act 1 of the opera present their situation, and their thoughts and feelings, with a degree of subtlety and ingenuity quite uncommon in opera, which is by nature not a realistic medium. The tension between emotion and constraint - the verbal fencing, the evasion, the innuendo - in this act is so thick you could cut it with the proverbial knife, and Wagner's release and resolution of it by the device of a failed joint suicide attempt is perfect and, at bottom, quite realistic. Stranger things - by far - have happened in "real" life.

If what happens in Tristan is 'psychologically realistic' then you live in a different universe from me! It is a romantic concept not a realistic one.

 

[DavidA]

I would only say to this that whether or not there was anything "magical" in that goblet, T and I were already lost in a love impossible to resist. The horrible tension of repression which kept those feelings in check had to be released, and the act of committing suicide together - and failing! - was all that was necessary. This is not found in the old legends, it's Wagner's invention, and it brings the story out of the realm of fantasy and into psychological reality. T and I, as medieval people, may have believed in the love potion's magical properties, but even they knew those properties were not responsible for their love. As Tristan says in Act 3:

Den furchtbaren Trank,
der der Qual mich vertraut,
ich selbst - ich selbst,
ich hab' ihn gebraut!
Aus Vaters Not
und Mutter-Weh,
aus Liebestränen
eh' und je, -
aus Lachen und Weinen,
Wonnen und Wunden
hab ich des Trankes
Gifte gefunden!

The fearful draught
that brings me anguish,
I, I myself,
I prepared it!
From my father's distress
and mother's anguish,
from tears of love
everlasting,
from laughing and weeping,
happiness and hurts,
I found
the poisonous draught!

Sorry but Tristan is not psychological reality. it is a romance,

 

[DavidA]

What is your objective? Are you saying that Wagner's portrayal of the psychology of his characters is poorly conceived? I have never encountered that opinion anywhere in 50 years of acquaintance with this work and the literature about it. As Anna Russell says, "I'm not making this up."

Cannot a romance exhibit psychological truth? Or is asking such a question irrelevant to your real purpose here - which is what, again?

My purpose is simply to express my opinion in disagreeing with your version of reality. In nearly 70 years of living on this planet I have never known people act like this outside of fiction. Of course a romance can exhibit psychological truth but you used the word reality.

 

[DavidA]

It is said that Melchior sang Tristan so many times he got somewhat bored with it. One night singing with Flagstad after Tristan's 'death' Melchior dropped off to sleep and started snoring. Flagstad had to kick him awake before her Lieberstod!

 

[DavidA]

Great story. :lol:

It's recounted by Harold Schoenberg.

 

[DavidA]

From Wiki......

On 21 July 1865, having sung the role only four times, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld died suddenly-prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. (The stress of performing Tristan has also "claimed" the lives of conductors Felix Mottl in 1911 and Joseph Keilberth in 1968. Both men died after collapsing while conducting the second Act of the opera.) Malvina sank into a deep depression over her husband's death, and never sang again, although she lived for another 38 years.

Keilberth's death prompted Karajan to sponsor research into the stresses conductors suffer. Mind you, it is not confined to Tristan. Sinopoli died conducting Aida. A friend of mine collapsed and died while conducting the local choir! So the 'Tristan' curse might be a bit mythical.

 

[DavidA]

When I was 20, I coulda used that love potion. The A & W Root Beer just didn't get the job done!!

When I was 20 I didn't need no love potion!