Word: tristans
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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When a long-dormant volcano spewed molten rock over their windswept Atlantic island in October 1961, the 260 inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha were rescued and brought to never-had-it-so-good Britain. Last week, after a year's exposure to the packaged joys of the affluent society, the hardy, forthright islanders decided that they had never had it so bad. In a secret ballot to decide whether or not they should return to a primitive, precarious existence on their isolated island, adult Tristan islanders voted overwhelmingly, 148 to 5, to return home...
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...