Word: tristan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Looming Symbol. The composer's grandson, Wieland Wagner, had staged a new Tristan at Bayreuth in 1952, and Brother Wolfgang tried his hand at it in 1957, but neither version satisfied Wieland. As he planned the opera in this year's production, it became "yet another aspect of the ancient Oedipus drama, with its eternal correlation between Love and Hate, Death and Eternity, Father and Son." The most startling changes in Wieland's Tristan: 1) Isolde does not die at the final curtain, and 2) King Marke strangely becomes Tristan's father instead of his uncle...
Wagnerians received their first big jolt at the end of Act I, when Isolde (Soprano Birgit Nilsson) and Tristan (Tenor Wolfgang Windgassen) embraced in full view of King Marke, who usually does not appear -or suspect the illicit love-until the end of Act II. The second act, like all the others, was provided with looming, symbolical sets, dominated by a huge shaft ("Of course, I meant it as a phallic symbol," snapped Wieland. "This is what the entire opera is all about, isn't it?"). The enthusiastic opening night crowd gave the reconstructed Tristan an unprecedented 30 curtain...
...meant a breakthrough to transfiguration. Isolde is experiencing a unity with the eternal night, which returns her to Tristan." And King Marke turning into Tristan's father? That came about, says Wieland, partly through archaeological research, partly from evidence in the opera itself. Scholars have discovered what they believe is Tristan's grave in southern Cornwall-and the inscription on the gravestone identifies the young lover as the son of the man historians believe to have been the historical King Marke...
While the operatic Tristan blames himself for the sufferings he inflicted on his parents, the orchestra plays the theme associated with King Marke. Wieland thinks that Grandfather Richard must have sensed intuitively what medieval prudes (who presumably altered the saga) could not stomach: the lust of father and son for the same woman...
...critics bought this Freudian analysis. But most agreed that Grandson Wieland had achieved as fine, and as gripping, a performance of Tristan as the modern opera stage has offered-although not a single fraulein collapsed in the aisles...