Tristan und Isolde | |
---|---|
Music drama by Richard Wagner | |
Ludwig and Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld as Tristan and Isolde in the first performance, conducted by Hans von Bülow | |
Librettist | Richard Wagner |
Language | German |
Based on | Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg |
Premiere | 10 June 1865 |
Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it 'eine Handlung' (literally a drama, a plot or an action), which was the equivalent of the term used by the Spanish playwrightCalderón for his dramas.
Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly The World as Will and Representation), as well as by Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as one of the peaks of the operatic repertoire, Tristan was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour and harmonic suspension.
'Tristan Und Isolde,' The Love Story That Changed Opera For Good: Deceptive Cadence Wagner's epic meditation on love turns 150. Projected on a cosmic level, the music triggered a seismic shift in. Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg. The new opera Tristan und Isolde was the height of modernity, as the succession of chords was determined more by chromaticism than by their harmonic function. The ‘Tristan chord’ put a bomb under traditional theory of harmony, as it were, and the orchestration was also extremely innovative.
The opera was enormously influential among Western classical composers and provided direct inspiration to composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Karol Szymanowski, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg and Benjamin Britten. Other composers like Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky formulated their styles in contrast to Wagner's musical legacy. Many see Tristan as the beginning of the move away from common practice harmony and tonality and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.[1] Both Wagner's libretto style and music were also profoundly influential on the symbolist poets of the late 19th century and early 20th century.[2]
- 1Composition history
- 6Synopsis
- 7Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde
Composition history[edit]
Photo of Richard Wagner in Bruxelles, 1860
Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the Dresden Opera in 1849, as there was a warrant posted for his arrest for his participation in the unsuccessful May Revolution. He left his wife, Minna, in Dresden, and fled to Zürich. There, in 1852, he met the wealthy silk trader Otto Wesendonck. Wesendonck became a supporter of Wagner and bankrolled the composer for several years. Wesendonck's wife, Mathilde, became enamoured of the composer.[3] Though Wagner was working on his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, he found himself intrigued by the legend of Tristan and Isolde.
The re-discovery of medieval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's version of Tristan, the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, left a large impact on the German Romantic movements during the mid-19th century. The story of Tristan and Isolde is a quintessential romance of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Several versions of the story exist, the earliest dating to the middle of the 12th century. Gottfried's version, part of the 'courtly' branch of the legend, had a huge influence on later German literature.[4]
According to his autobiography, Mein Leben, Wagner decided to dramatise the Tristan legend after his friend, Karl Ritter, attempted to do so, writing that:
He had, in fact, made a point of giving prominence to the lighter phases of the romance, whereas it was its all-pervading tragedy that impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details.[5]
This influence, together with his discovery of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a 'serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a Tristan und Isolde.'[6]
Wagner wrote of his preoccupations with Schopenhauer and Tristan in a letter to Franz Liszt (December 16, 1854):
Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the last, love shall, for once, find utter repletion. I have devised in my mind a Tristan und Isolde, the simplest, yet most full-blooded musical conception imaginable, and with the ‘black flag’ that waves at the end I shall cover myself over – to die.[7]
Painting of Mathilde Wesendonck (1850) by Karl Ferdinand Sohn
By the end of 1854, Wagner had sketched out all three acts of an opera on the Tristan theme, based on Gottfried von Strassburg's telling of the story. While the earliest extant sketches date from December 1856, it was not until August 1857 that Wagner began devoting his attention entirely to the opera, putting aside the composition of Siegfried to do so. On 20 August he began the prose sketch for the opera, and the libretto (or poem, as Wagner preferred to call it) was completed by September 18.[8] Wagner, at this time, had moved into a cottage built in the grounds of Wesendonck's villa, where, during his work on Tristan und Isolde, he became passionately involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether or not this relationship was platonic remains uncertain. One evening in September of that year, Wagner read the finished poem of 'Tristan' to an audience including his wife, Minna, his current muse, Mathilde, and his future mistress (and later wife), Cosima von Bülow.
By October 1857, Wagner had begun the composition sketch of the first act. During November, however, he set five of Mathilde's poems to music known today as the Wesendonck Lieder. This was an unusual move by Wagner, who almost never set to music poetic texts other than his own. Wagner described two of the songs – 'Im Treibhaus' and 'Träume' – as 'Studies for Tristan und Isolde': 'Träume' uses a motif that forms the love duet in act 2 of Tristan, while 'Im Treibhaus' introduces a theme that later became the prelude to act 3.[9] But Wagner resolved to write Tristan only after he had secured a publishing deal with the Leipzig-based firm Breitkopf & Härtel, in January 1858. From this point on, Wagner finished each act and sent it off for engraving before he started on the next – a remarkable feat given the unprecedented length and complexity of the score.[10]
In April 1858 Wagner's wife Minna intercepted a note from Wagner to Mathilde and, despite Wagner's protests that she was putting a 'vulgar interpretation' on the note, she accused first Wagner and then Mathilde of unfaithfulness.[11] After enduring much misery, Wagner persuaded Minna, who had a heart condition, to rest at a spa while Otto Wesendonck took Mathilde to Italy. It was during the absence of the two women that Wagner began the composition sketch of the second act of Tristan. However, Minna's return in July 1858 did not clear the air, and on August 17, Wagner was forced to leave both Minna and Mathilde and move to Venice.
Wagner would later describe his last days in Zurich as 'a veritable Hell'. Minna wrote to Mathilde before departing for Dresden:
I must tell you with a bleeding heart that you have succeeded in separating my husband from me after nearly twenty-two years of marriage. May this noble deed contribute to your peace of mind, to your happiness.[12]
Wagner finished the second act of Tristan during his eight-month exile in Venice, where he lived in the Palazzo Giustinian. In March 1859, fearing extradition to Saxony, where he was still considered a fugitive, Wagner moved to Lucerne where he composed the last act, completing it in August 1859.
Premiere[edit]
Tristan und Isolde proved to be a difficult opera to stage, and Wagner considered various possibilities for the venue. In 1857 he was invited by a representative of Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, to stage his operas in Rio de Janeiro (in Italian, the language of the Imperial Opera); he told Liszt he was considering settling in Rio, and that that city would be given the honour of premiering Tristan. Wagner sent the Emperor bound copies of his earlier operas in expression of his interest, but nothing more came of the plan.[13] He then proposed that the premiere take place in Strasbourg, following interest in the project shown by the Grand Duchess of Baden. Again, the project failed to eventuate.[13] His thoughts then turned to Paris, the centre of the operatic world in the middle of the 19th century. However, after a disastrous staging of Tannhäuser at the Paris Opéra, Wagner offered the work to the Karlsruhe opera in 1861.
Photo of Hans von Bülow, who conducted the premiere
When Wagner visited the Vienna Court Opera to rehearse possible singers for this production, the management at Vienna suggested staging the opera there. Originally, the tenor Alois Ander was employed to sing the part of Tristan, but later proved incapable of learning the role. Parallel attempts to stage the opera in Dresden, Weimar and Prague failed. Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, Tristan und Isolde was unable to be staged in Vienna, winning the opera a reputation as unperformable.
It was only after King Ludwig II of Bavaria became a sponsor of Wagner (he granted the composer a generous stipend, and supported Wagner's artistic endeavours in other ways) that enough resources could be found to mount the premiere of Tristan und Isolde. Hans von Bülow was chosen to conduct the production at the Nationaltheater in Munich, despite the fact that Wagner was having an affair with his wife, Cosima von Bülow. Even then, the planned premiere on 15 May 1865 had to be postponed until the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, had recovered from hoarseness. The work finally premiered on 10 June 1865, with Malvina's husband Ludwig partnering her as Tristan.
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 conductorsFelix 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.
For some years thereafter, the only performers of the roles were another husband-wife team, Heinrich Vogl and Therese Vogl.[14]
Performance history[edit]
The next production of Tristan was in Weimar in 1874. Wagner himself supervised another production of Tristan in Berlin in March 1876, but the opera was only performed in his own theatre at the Bayreuth Festival after his death; Cosima Wagner, his widow, oversaw this in 1886, a production that was widely acclaimed.
The first production outside of Germany was given at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London in 1882; Tristan was performed by Hermann Winkelmann, who later that year sang the title role of Parsifal at Bayreuth. It was conducted by Hans Richter, who also conducted the first Covent Garden production two years later. Winkelmann was also the first Vienna Tristan, in 1883. The first American performance was held at the Metropolitan Opera in December 1886, conducted by Anton Seidl.
Significance in the development of romantic music[edit]
The score of Tristan und Isolde has often been cited as a landmark in the development of Western music.[15] Throughout the opera, Wagner uses a remarkable range of orchestral colour, harmony, and polyphony, doing so with a freedom rarely found in his earlier operas. The very first chord in the piece, the Tristan chord, is of great significance in the move away from traditional tonal harmony as it resolves to another dissonant chord:[16]
The opera is noted for its numerous expansions of harmonic practice; for instance, one significant innovation is the frequent use of two consecutive chords containing tritones (diminished fifth or augmented fourth), neither of which is a diminished seventh chord (F–B, bar 2; E–A-sharp, bar 3). Tristan und Isolde is also notable for its use of harmonic suspension – a device used by a composer to create musical tension by exposing the listener to a series of prolonged unfinished cadences, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical resolution.[17] While suspension is a common compositional device (in use since before the Renaissance), Wagner was one of the first composers to employ harmonic suspension over the course of an entire work. The cadences first introduced in the prelude are not resolved until the finale of act 3, and, on a number of occasions throughout the opera, Wagner primes the audience for a musical climax with a series of chords building in tension – only to deliberately defer the anticipated resolution. One particular example of this technique occurs at the end of the love duet in act 2 ('Wie sie fassen, wie sie lassen..') where Tristan and Isolde gradually build up to a musical climax, only to have the expected resolution destroyed by the dissonant interruption of Kurwenal ('Rette Dich, Tristan!'). The deferred resolutions are frequently interpreted as symbolising both physical sexual release and spiritual release via suicide. The long-awaited completion of this cadence series arrives only in the final 'Liebestod' ('Love-Death'), during which the musical resolution (at 'In des Welt-Atems wehendem All') coincides with the moment of Isolde's death.[18]
The tonality of Tristan was to prove immensely influential in western Classical music. Wagner's use of musical colour also influenced the development of film music. Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Vertigo, is heavily reminiscent of the Liebestod, most evidently in the resurrection scene. The Liebestod was incorporated in Luis Buñuel's Surrealist film L'Age d'Or. Not all composers, however, reacted favourably: Claude Debussy's piano piece 'Golliwog's Cakewalk' mockingly quotes the opening of the opera in a distorted form, instructing the passage to be played 'avec une grande emotion'. However, Debussy was highly influenced by Wagner and was particularly fond of Tristan. Frequent moments of Tristan-inspired tonality mark Debussy's early compositions.
Roles[edit]
Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 10 June 1865 (Conductor: Hans von Bülow) |
---|---|---|
Tristan, a Breton nobleman, adopted heir of Marke | tenor | Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld |
Isolde, an Irish princess betrothed to Marke | soprano | Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld |
Brangäne, Isolde's maid | soprano[19] | Anna Deinet |
Kurwenal, Tristan's servant | baritone | Anton Mitterwurzer |
Marke, King of Cornwall | bass | Ludwig Zottmayer |
Melot, a courtier, Tristan's friend | tenor (or baritone)[20] | Karl Samuel Heinrich |
A shepherd | tenor | Karl Simons |
A steersman | baritone | Peter Hartmann |
A young sailor | tenor | |
Sailors, knights, and esquires |
Instrumentation[edit]
Tristan und Isolde is scored for the following instruments:
- 3 flutes (one doubles piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons
- 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass tuba
- timpani, cymbals, triangle
- 1st and 2nd violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses (Die Streichinstrumente sind vorzüglich gut und stark zu besetzen. [The string instruments are to be exquisitely cast in quantity and quality.])
on-stage
- cor anglais, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones
Synopsis[edit]
Act 1[edit]
Tristan und Isolde by Ferdinand Leeke
Isolde, promised to King Marke in marriage, and her handmaid, Brangäne, are quartered aboard Tristan's ship being transported to the king's lands in Cornwall. The opera opens with the voice of a young sailor singing of a 'wild Irish maid', ('Westwärts schweift der Blick') which Isolde construes to be a mocking reference to herself. In a furious outburst, she wishes the seas to rise up and sink the ship, killing herself and all on board ('Erwache mir wieder, kühne Gewalt'). Her scorn and rage are directed particularly at Tristan, the knight responsible for taking her to Marke, and Isolde sends Brangäne to command Tristan to appear before her ('Befehlen liess' dem Eigenholde'). Tristan, however, refuses Brangäne's request, claiming that his place is at the helm. His henchman, Kurwenal, answers more brusquely, saying that Isolde is in no position to command Tristan and reminds Brangäne that Isolde's previous fiancé, Morold, was killed by Tristan ('Herr Morold zog zu Meere her').
Brangäne returns to Isolde to relate these events, and Isolde, in what is termed the 'narrative and curse', sadly tells her of how, following the death of Morold, she happened upon a stranger who called himself Tantris. Tantris was found mortally wounded in a barge ('von einem Kahn, der klein und arm') and Isolde used her healing powers to restore him to health. She discovered during Tantris' recovery, however, that he was actually Tristan, the murderer of her fiancé. Isolde attempted to kill the man with his own sword as he lay helpless before her. However, Tristan looked not at the sword that would kill him or the hand that wielded the sword, but into her eyes ('Er sah' mir in die Augen'). His action pierced her heart and she was unable to slay him. Tristan was allowed to leave with the promise never to come back, but he later returned with the intention of marrying Isolde to his uncle, King Marke. Isolde, furious at Tristan's betrayal, insists that he drink atonement to her, and from her medicine chest produces a vial to make the drink. Brangäne is shocked to see that it is a lethal poison.
Kurwenal appears in the women's quarters ('Auf auf! Ihr Frauen!') and announces that the voyage is coming to an end. Isolde warns Kurwenal that she will not appear before the King if Tristan does not come before her as she had previously ordered and drink atonement to her. When Tristan arrives, Isolde reproaches him about his conduct and tells him that he owes her his life and how his actions have undermined her honour, since she blessed Morold's weapons before battle and therefore she swore revenge. Tristan first offers his sword but Isolde refuses; they must drink atonement. Brangäne brings in the potion that will seal their pardon; Tristan knows that it may kill him, since he knows Isolde's magic powers ('Wohl kenn' ich Irland's Königin'). The journey almost at its end, Tristan drinks and Isolde takes half the potion for herself. The potion seems to work but it does not bring death but relentless love ('Tristan!' 'Isolde!'). Kurwenal, who announces the imminent arrival on board of King Marke, interrupts their rapture. Isolde asks Brangäne which potion she prepared and Brangäne replies, as the sailors hail the arrival of King Marke, that it was not poison, but rather a love potion.
Act 2[edit]
King Marke leads a hunting party out into the night, leaving Isolde and Brangäne alone in the castle, who both stand beside a burning brazier. Isolde, listening to the hunting horns, believes several times that the hunting party is far enough away to warrant the extinguishing of the brazier – the prearranged signal for Tristan to join her ('Nicht Hörnerschall tönt so hold'). Brangäne warns Isolde that Melot, one of King Marke's knights, has seen the amorous looks exchanged between Tristan and Isolde and suspects their passion ('Ein Einz'ger war's, ich achtet' es wohl'). Isolde, however, believes Melot to be Tristan's most loyal friend, and, in a frenzy of desire, extinguishes the flames. Brangäne retires to the ramparts to keep watch as Tristan arrives.
The lovers, at last alone and freed from the constraints of courtly life, declare their passion for each other. Tristan decries the realm of daylight which is false, unreal, and keeps them apart. It is only in night, he claims, that they can truly be together and only in the long night of death can they be eternally united ('O sink' hernieder, Nacht der Liebe'). During their long tryst, Brangäne calls a warning several times that the night is ending ('Einsam wachend in der Nacht'), but her cries fall upon deaf ears. The day breaks in on the lovers as Melot leads King Marke and his men to find Tristan and Isolde in each other's arms. Marke is heartbroken, not only because of his nephew's betrayal but also because Melot chose to betray his friend Tristan to Marke and because of Isolde's betrayal as well ('Mir – dies? Dies, Tristan – mir?').
When questioned, Tristan says he cannot answer to the King the reason of his betrayal since he would not understand. He turns to Isolde, who agrees to follow him again into the realm of night. Tristan announces that Melot has fallen in love with Isolde too. Melot and Tristan fight, but, at the crucial moment, Tristan throws his sword aside and allows Melot to severely wound him.
Model by Angelo Quaglio of the set in Act 3 for the premiere production
Act 3[edit]
Kurwenal has brought Tristan home to his castle at Kareol in Brittany. A shepherd pipes a mournful tune and asks if Tristan is awake. Kurwenal replies that only Isolde's arrival can save Tristan, and the shepherd offers to keep watch and claims that he will pipe a joyful tune to mark the arrival of any ship. Tristan awakes ('Die alte Weise – was weckt sie mich?') and laments his fate – to be, once again, in the false realm of daylight, once more driven by unceasing unquenchable yearning ('Wo ich erwacht' weilt ich nicht'). Tristan's sorrow ends when Kurwenal tells him that Isolde is on her way. Tristan, overjoyed, asks if her ship is in sight, but only a sorrowful tune from the shepherd's pipe is heard.
Tristan relapses and recalls that the shepherd's mournful tune is the same as was played when he was told of the deaths of his father and mother ('Muss ich dich so versteh'n, du alte, ernst Weise'). He rails once again against his desires and against the fateful love potion ('verflucht sei, furchtbarer Trank!') until, exhausted, he collapses in delirium. After his collapse, the shepherd is heard piping the arrival of Isolde's ship, and, as Kurwenal rushes to meet her, Tristan tears the bandages from his wounds in his excitement ('Hahei! Mein Blut, lustig nun fliesse!'). As Isolde arrives at his side, Tristan dies with her name on his lips.
Isolde collapses beside her deceased lover just as the appearance of another ship is announced. Kurwenal spies Melot, Marke and Brangäne arriving ('Tod und Hölle! Alles zur Hand!'). He believes they have come to kill Tristan and, in an attempt to avenge him, furiously attacks Melot. Marke tries to stop the fight to no avail. Both Melot and Kurwenal are killed in the fight. Marke and Brangäne finally reach Tristan and Isolde. Marke, grieving over the body of his 'truest friend' ('Tot denn alles!'), explains that Brangäne revealed the secret of the love potion and that he had come not to part the lovers, but to unite them ('Warum Isolde, warum mir das?'). Isolde appears to wake at this and in a final aria describing her vision of Tristan risen again (the 'Liebestod', 'love death'), dies ('Mild und leise wie er lächelt').
Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde[edit]
Portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer (1815) by Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl
Wagner's friend the poet Georg Herwegh introduced him in late 1854 to the work of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.[21] The composer was immediately struck by the philosophical ideas to be found in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation), and the similarities between the two men's world-views became clear.[22]
Man, according to Schopenhauer, is driven by continued, unachievable desires, and the gulf between our desires and the possibility of achieving them leads to misery while the world is a representation of an unknowable reality. Our representation of the world is Phenomenon, while the unknowable reality is Noumenon: concepts originally posited by Kant. Schopenhauer's influence on Tristan und Isolde is most evident in the second and third acts. The second act, in which the lovers meet, and the third act, during which Tristan longs for release from the passions that torment him, have often proved puzzling to opera-goers unfamiliar with Schopenhauer's work.
Wagner uses the metaphor of Day and Night in the second act to designate the realms inhabited by Tristan and Isolde.[23] The world of Day is one in which the lovers are bound by the dictates of King Marke's court and in which the lovers must smother their mutual love and pretend as if they do not care for each other: it is a realm of falsehood and unreality. Under the dictates of the realm of Day, Tristan was forced to remove Isolde from Ireland and to marry her to his Uncle Marke – actions against Tristan's secret desires. The realm of Night, in contrast, is the representation of intrinsic reality, in which the lovers can be together and their desires can be openly expressed and reach fulfilment: it is the realm of oneness, truth and reality and can only be achieved fully upon the deaths of the lovers. The realm of Night, therefore, becomes also the realm of death: the only world in which Tristan and Isolde can be as one forever, and it is this realm that Tristan speaks of at the end of act 2 ('Dem Land das Tristan meint, der Sonne Licht nicht scheint').[24] In act 3, Tristan rages against the daylight and frequently cries out for release from his desires (Sehnen). In this way, Wagner implicitly equates the realm of Day with Schopenhauer's concept of Phenomenon and the realm of Night with Schopenhauer's concept of Noumenon.[25] While none of this is explicitly stated in the libretto, Tristan's comments on Day and Night in acts 2 and 3, as well as musical allusions to Tristan in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Parsifal make it very clear that this was, in fact, Wagner's intention.[citation needed]
The world-view of Schopenhauer dictates that the only way for man to achieve inner peace is to renounce his desires: a theme that Wagner explored fully in his last opera, Parsifal. In fact Wagner even considered having the character of Parsifal meet Tristan during his sufferings in act 3, but later rejected the idea.[26]
Opinion against Schopenhauer influence[edit]
Klaas A. Posthuma argues that neither Tristan nor Isolde tries for one moment to ignore feelings of love for the other or to overcome them. On the contrary, they yield to their feelings with all their hearts – but secretly. Such behavior has nothing whatever to do with Schopenhauer's claim. Another important point in Schopenhauer's philosophy is his view that happiness cannot be found with one woman only – his reason for never marrying. But for Tristan there is only one woman, Isolde, with Death as alternative. And this leads to the inevitable conclusion that it was not Schopenhauer and his doctrine that were responsible for creating of Wagner's sublime music drama but his own unfulfilled longing for the woman he met and loved during these years, Mathilde Wesendonck.[27]
Reactions to Tristan und Isolde[edit]
Although Tristan und Isolde is now widely performed in major opera houses around the world, critical opinion of the opera was initially unfavourable. The 5 July 1865 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported:
Not to mince words, it is the glorification of sensual pleasure, tricked out with every titillating device, it is unremitting materialism, according to which human beings have no higher destiny than, after living the life of turtle doves, ‘to vanish in sweet odours, like a breath'. In the service of this end, music has been enslaved to the word; the most ideal of the Muses has been made to grind the colours for indecent paintings.. (Wagner) makes sensuality itself the true subject of his drama.. We think that the stage presentation of the poem Tristan und Isolde amounts to an act of indecency. Wagner does not show us the life of heroes of Nordic sagas which would edify and strengthen the spirit of his German audiences. What he does present is the ruination of the life of heroes through sensuality.[28]
Eduard Hanslick's reaction in 1868 to the prelude to Tristan was that it 'reminds one of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.' The first performance in London's Drury Lane Theatre drew the following response from The Era in 1882:
We cannot refrain from making a protest against the worship of animal passion which is so striking a feature in the late works of Wagner. We grant there is nothing so repulsive in Tristan as in Die Walküre, but the system is the same. The passion is unholy in itself and its representation is impure, and for those reasons we rejoice in believing that such works will not become popular. If they did we are certain their tendency would be mischievous, and there is, therefore, some cause for congratulation in the fact that Wagner's music, in spite of all its wondrous skill and power, repels a greater number than it fascinates.[29]
Tristan And Isolde Opera Length
Mark Twain, on a visit to Germany, heard Tristan at Bayreuth and commented: 'I know of some, and have heard of many, who could not sleep after it, but cried the night away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the one sane person in the community of the mad; sometimes I feel like the one blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in the college of the learned, and always, during service, I feel like a heretic in heaven.'[30]
Clara Schumann wrote that Tristan und Isolde was 'the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life'.[31]
With the passage of time, Tristan became more favourably regarded. In an interview shortly before his death, Giuseppe Verdi said that he 'stood in wonder and terror' before Wagner's Tristan.[32] In The Perfect Wagnerite, writer and satirist George Bernard Shaw writes that Tristan was 'an astonishingly intense and faithful translation into music of the emotions which accompany the union of a pair of lovers' and described it as 'a poem of destruction and death'. Richard Strauss, initially dismissive of Tristan, claimed that Wagner's music 'would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of [its] hideous discords.' Later, however, Strauss became part of the Bayreuth coterie and writing to Cosima Wagner in 1892 declared: 'I have conducted my first Tristan. It was the most wonderful day of my life.' In 1935 he wrote to Joseph Gregor, one of his librettists, that Tristan und Isolde was 'the end of all romanticism, as it brings into focus the longing of the entire 19th century.'[33]
The conductor Bruno Walter heard his first Tristan und Isolde in 1889 as a student:
So there I sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Opera House, and from the first sound of the cellos my heart contracted spasmodically.. Never before has my soul been deluged with such floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by such yearning and sublime bliss.. A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and I wanted to become his prophet.[34]
Arnold Schoenberg referred to Wagner's technique of shifting chords in Tristan as 'phenomena of incredible adaptability and nonindependence roaming, homeless, among the spheres of keys; spies reconnoitering weaknesses; to exploit them in order to create confusion, deserters for whom surrender of their own personality is an end in itself'.[citation needed]
Friedrich Nietzsche, who in his younger years was one of Wagner's staunchest allies, wrote that, for him, 'Tristan and Isolde is the real opus metaphysicum of all art .. insatiable and sweet craving for the secrets of night and death .. it is overpowering in its simple grandeur'. In a letter to his friend Erwin Rohde in October 1868, Nietzsche described his reaction to Tristan's prelude: 'I simply cannot bring myself to remain critically aloof from this music; every nerve in me is atwitch, and it has been a long time since I had such a lasting sense of ecstasy as with this overture'. Even after his break with Wagner, Nietzsche continued to consider Tristan a masterpiece: 'Even now I am still in search of a work which exercises such a dangerous fascination, such a spine-tingling and blissful infinity as Tristan – I have sought in vain, in every art.'[35]
Marcel Proust, greatly influenced by Wagner, refers to Tristan und Isolde and its 'inexhaustible repetitions' throughout his novel In Search of Lost Time. He describes the prelude theme as 'linked to the future, to the reality of the human soul, of which it was one of the most special and distinctive ornaments.'[36][37]
Recordings[edit]
Photo from a 1917 production
Tristan und Isolde has a long recorded history and most of the major Wagner conductors since the end of the First World War have had their interpretations captured on disc. The limitations of recording technology meant that until the 1930s it was difficult to record the entire opera, however recordings of excerpts or single acts exist going back to 1901, when excerpts of Tristan were captured on the Mapleson Cylinders recorded during performances at the Metropolitan Opera.[38]
In the years before World War II, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior were considered to be the prime interpreters of the lead roles, and mono recordings exist of this pair in a number of live performances led by conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky and Erich Leinsdorf. Flagstad recorded the part commercially only near the end of her career in 1952, under Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, producing a set which is considered a classic recording.[39]
Following the war, another classic recording is the 1952 performance at the Bayreuth Festival with Martha Mödl and Ramón Vinay under Herbert von Karajan, which is noted for its strong, vivid characterizations and is now available as a live recording. In the 1960s, the soprano Birgit Nilsson was considered the major Isolde interpreter, and she was often partnered with the Tristan of Wolfgang Windgassen. Their performance at Bayreuth in 1966 under the baton of Karl Böhm was captured by Deutsche Grammophon – a performance often hailed as one of the best Tristan recordings.[40]
Karajan did not record the opera officially until 1971–72. Karajan's selection of a lighter soprano voice (Helga Dernesch) as Isolde, paired with an extremely intense Jon Vickers and the unusual balance between orchestra and singers favoured by Karajan was controversial. In the 1980s recordings by conductors such as Carlos Kleiber, Reginald Goodall and Leonard Bernstein were mostly considered to be important for the interpretation of the conductor, rather than that of the lead performers. The set by Kleiber is notable as Isolde was sung by the famous Mozartian soprano Margaret Price, who never sang the role of Isolde on stage. The same is true for Plácido Domingo, who sang the role of Tristan to critical acclaim in the 2005 EMI release under the baton of Antonio Pappano despite never having sung the role on stage. In the last ten years acclaimed sets include a studio recording with the Berlin Philharmonic by Daniel Barenboim and a live set from the Vienna Staatsoper led by Christian Thielemann.
There are several DVD productions of the opera including Götz Friedrich's production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin featuring the seasoned Wagnerians René Kollo and Dame Gwyneth Jones in the title roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a Metropolitan Opera performance featuring Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted by James Levine, in a production staged by Dieter Dorn[41] and a DVD of the 1993 Bayreuth Festival production with conductor Daniel Barenboim and featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged by Heiner Müller. More recently Barenboim's production at La Scala, Milan, in the production by Patrice Chéreau has also been issued on DVD. There is also a technically flawed, but historically important video recording with Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers from a 1973 live performance at the Théâtre antique d'Orange, conducted by Karl Böhm.
In a world first, the British opera house Glyndebourne made a full digital video download of the opera available for purchase online in 2009. The performance stars Robert Gambill as Tristan, Nina Stemme as Isolde, Katarina Karnéus as Brangäne, Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal, René Pape as King Marke, and Stephen Gadd as Melot, with Jiří Bělohlávek as the conductor, and was recorded on 1 and 6 August 2007.[42]
This package provides the driver version 5.1.112.64 running for Dell PERC H310/H710/H710P/H810 Controllersfor the following Windows operating systems: Windows 2008 R2 64 Bit.
A performance typically lasts approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes.
Concert extracts and arrangements[edit]
The Prelude and Liebestod is a concert version of the overture and Isolde's act 3 aria, 'Mild und leise'. The arrangement was by Wagner himself, and it was first performed in 1862, several years before the premiere of the complete opera in 1865. The Liebestod can be performed either in a purely orchestral version, or with a soprano singing Isolde's vision of Tristan resurrected.
However, the very first time the prelude and its opening 'Tristan chord' was heard publicly was on 12 March 1859, when it was performed at the Sophieninselsaal in Prague, in a charity concert in aid of poor medical students, conducted by Hans von Bülow, who provided his own concert ending for the occasion. Wagner had authorised such an ending, but did not like what Bülow had done with it and later wrote his own.[43][44] Wagner then included the prelude in his own three concerts at the Paris Théâtre-Italien in January-February 1860.[45]
Wagner called the prelude the 'Liebestod' (Love-death) while Isolde's final aria 'Mild und leise' he called the 'Verklärung' (Transfiguration). In 1867 his father-in-law Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of 'Mild und leise', which he called 'Liebestod' (S.447); he prefaced his score with a four-bar motto from the love duet from act 2, which in the opera is sung to the words 'sehnend verlangter Liebestod'. Liszt's transcription became well known throughout Europe well before Wagner's opera reached most places, and it is Liszt's title for the final scene that persists. The transcription was revised in 1875.[46]
Wagner wrote a concert ending for the act 2 Love Duet for a planned 1862 concert performance that did not eventuate. The music was lost until 1950, then passed into private hands, before coming to the attention of Daniel Barenboim, who passed it on to Sir Antonio Pappano. The first recording of the Love Duet with the concert ending was made in 2000, with Plácido Domingo, Deborah Voigt and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House under Pappano.[47]
Another composer to rework material from Tristan was Emmanuel Chabrier in his humorous Souvenirs de Munich – quadrilles on themes from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.[48] These were augmented and orchestrated by Markus Lehmann in 1988.[49]Leopold Stokowski made a series of purely orchestral 'Symphonic Syntheses' of Wagner's operas during his time as conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, bringing to concert audiences of the 1920s and '30s music they might not otherwise have heard. He made a 'long version' of music from Tristan and Isolde which consisted mainly of the act 1 prelude, the Liebesnacht from act 2 and the Liebestod from act 3. A shorter version of music from the 2nd and 3rd acts was called 'Love Music from Tristan and Isolde'. He made recordings of both versions on 78s and again on LP.
Other works based on the opera include:
- Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou, 1929 film score, Opera Frankfurt, director Carl Bamberger
- Clément Doucet's piano rags Isoldina and Wagneria.
- Hans Werner Henze's Tristan: Préludes für Klavier, Tonbänder und Orchester (1973);
- a 'symphonic compilation' Tristan und Isolde: an orchestral passion (1994) by Henk de Vlieger;
- a six-minute paraphrase by Enjott Schneider, Der Minuten-Tristan (1996), originally written for 12 pianists at six pianos;
- the Nachtstück (1980–83) for viola and chamber orchestra by Volker David Kirchner[50]
- Franz Waxman, Fantasy based on themes from the opera, for violin and orchestra
- Lars von Trier, Melancholia, film score
References[edit]
Notes
- ^Millington 1992, p. 301.
- ^The Richard Wagner Cult, Degeneration (1892), translated by G.l. Mosse, New York, 1968, pp. 171–213.
- ^For a nuanced view of the connection between the Wesendonck affair and Tristan und Isolde see Andreas Dorschel, 'Reflex, Vision, Gegenbild. Konstellationen zwischen Kunst und Leben', in: Weimarer Beiträge 64 (2018), no. 2, p. 286–298; idem, 'Life′s Work. Wagner′s Tristan and the Critique of Biographism', in: Life as an Aesthetic Idea of Music, ed. Manos Perrakis, Vienna/London/New York, NY: Universal Edition 2019, p. 63–78.
- ^Classen 2003.
- ^Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617. View1 at Google Books.
- ^Wagner 1911, vol. 2, p. 617. View2 at Google Books.
- ^Gutman 1990, p. 163.
- ^Millington 1992, p. 300.
- ^Millington 1992, p. 318.
- ^Deathridge 2008, 'Public and Private Life', pp. 117–32.
- ^Gutman 1990, p. 180–82.
- ^Gutman 1990, p. 182.
- ^ abPeter Bassett, 'Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde']. Retrieved 25 September 2016[full citation needed]
- ^Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., Vol. IX, p. 37
- ^Rose, John Luke. 'A Landmark in Musical History' in Wagner 1981, p. 15.
- ^Magee 2001, p. 208.
- ^Magee 1983, p. 356.
- ^Millington 1992, p. 252.
- ^The score calls for a soprano, and Brangäne was sung by one in the original production; however, the role has been generally sung by a mezzo-soprano (Jander, Owen; Steane, J. B.; Forbes, Elizabeth. 'Mezzo-soprano' in Sadie 1992, vol. 3, p. 372). Almost all available recordings feature a mezzo-soprano as Brangäne (see Tristan und Isolde discography).
- ^The score calls for a tenor in the role of Melot; however, the part is frequently assigned to a baritone.[citation needed]
- ^Gregor-Dellin 1983, p. 256.
- ^Magee 2001, p. 128.
- ^Magee 2001, pp. 217–21.
- ^Magee 2001, p. 221.
- ^Magee 2001, p. 218.
- ^Gregor-Dellin 1983, p. 258.
- ^Posthuma, Klaas A. (1988). Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (CD-Text). EMI.
- ^Barth 1975, p. 208.
- ^Mander R. & Mitchenson J. (W.H. Allen, London, 1977), The Wagner Companion, p. 120.
- ^Twain, Mark (6 December 1891). 'Mark Twain at Bayreuth'. Chicago Daily Tribune. See 'At the Shrine of St. Wagner'. twainquotes.com. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
- ^Brauenstein, Joseph (1971). Notes for the LP 'Clara Schumann. Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7 '. Michael Ponti, piano; Symphonisches Orchester Berlin; Völker Schmidt-Gertenbach, conductor. Vox STGBY649. OCLC34837519, 3496053.
- ^Millington 1992, p. 382.
- ^Kennedy, Michael (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma, p. 67. Google Books
- ^Goulding, Phil G. (2011-03-16). Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works. Random House Publishing Group. p. 148. ISBN9780307760463.
- ^Nietzsche 1979, p. 61.
- ^Proust, In Search of Lost Time (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7178/7178-h/7178-h.htm)
- ^Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Proust as Musician. Oxford. https://books.google.com/books?id=tWoHGRw8No0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
- ^Brown 2000.[page needed]
- ^Holloway 1982, p. 367.
- ^Blyth 1992, p. 65.
- ^'On-line catalogue entry Tristan und Isolde DVD conducted by James Levine'. Deutsche Grammophon. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
- ^'Glyndebourne – Tristan und Isolde – Download'. glyndebourne.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
- ^Kenneth Birkin, Hans von Bülow: A Life for Music, p. 121
- ^Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Program Notes
- ^Newman, Ernest (1937). The Life of Richard Wagner, Volume 3: 1859-1866. p. 4-6.
- ^Charles Suttoni, Introduction, Franz Liszt: Complete Piano Transcriptions from Wagner's Operas, Dover Publications
- ^ABC Radio 24 Hours, February 2001, p. 113
- ^Payne, Anthony (12 February 1994). 'Greatest of late starters: Anthony Payne feasts on Chabrier'. The Independent. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
- ^Schott AktuellArchived 2016-05-14 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, p. 11, accessed 3 March 2012
- ^Schott AktuellArchived 2016-05-14 at the Portuguese Web Archive. January/February 2012, pp. 10–12, accessed 3 March 2012
Sources
- Barth Herbert; Mack, Dietrich; Voss Egon, editors (1975). Wagner: A Documentary Study. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN978-0-500-27399-9.
- Blyth, Alan (1992). Opera on CD: The Essential Guide to the Best CD Recordings of 100 Operas London: Kyle Cathie. ISBN978-1-85626-056-5.
- Borchmeyer, Dieter (2003). Drama and the World of Richard Wagner. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN978-0-691-11497-2.
- Chafe, Eric (2005). The Tragic and the Ecstatic: The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-517647-6.
- Classen, Albrecht (20 May 2003). 'Tristan and Isolde (also known as Tristan and Iseult, Tristan and Isolt, Tristram)'. The Literary Encyclopedia. ISSN1747-678X.
- Deathridge, John (2008), 'Wagner Beyond Good and Evil'. Berkeley: California Univ. Press. ISBN978-0-520-25453-4.
- Fabinger, Carollina (2009). Tristano e Isotta. Una piccola storia sul destino e sull'amore eterno (illustrated version, in Italian). Milan: Nuages. ISBN978-88-86178-90-7.
- Gregor-Dellin, Martin (1983). Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century. London: William Collins. ISBN978-0-00-216669-0.
- Gut, Serge (2014), Tristan et Isolde. Paris: Fayard. ISBN978-2-213-68113-9.
- Gutman, Robert W. (1990). Wagner – The Man, His Mind and His Music. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN978-0-15-677615-8.
- Holloway, Robin (1982). 'Tristan und Isolde' in Blyth, Alan, editor. Opera on Record, pp. 363–75. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN978-0-06-090910-9.
- Magee, Bryan (1983). The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-824673-2.
- Magee, Bryan (2001). The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN978-0-8050-6788-0.
- May, Thomas (2004). Decoding Wagner. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Press. ISBN978-1-57467-097-4.
- Millington, Barry, editor (1992). The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN978-0-500-28274-8.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich; Hollingdale, Roger, translator (1979). Ecce Homo. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN978-0-14-044515-2.
- Sadie, Stanley, editor (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. ISBN978-1-56159-228-9.
- Scruton, Roger (2004). Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-516691-4.
- Wagner, Richard; Mottl, Felix, editor (1911 or slightly later). Tristan und Isolde (full score). Leipzig: C. F. Peters. Reprint by Dover (1973): ISBN978-0-486-22915-7.
- Wagner, Richard (1911). My Life (2 volumes; authorized English translation from German). New York: Dodd, Mead. Volume 1 and 2 at Google Books.
- Wagner, Richard (1981). Tristan and Isolde (English National Opera Guide). London: J. Calder. ISBN978-0-7145-3849-5. (Includes libretto, English translation by Andrew Porter, introduction by John Luke Rose, and commentaries.)
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tristan und Isolde (Wagner). |
- Bilingual side by side German English Libretto Also available in Italian
- Wagner Operas. A comprehensive website featuring photographs of productions, recordings, librettos, and sound files.
- Richard Wagner – Tristan und Isolde. A gallery of historic postcards with motifs from Richard Wagner's operas.
- Recordings of Tristan and Isolde rated. Recordings reviewed by Geoffrey Riggs.
- Discography of Tristan und Isolde. List of recordings and videos from 1901 to 2004 by Jonathan Brown.
- Wagner's Tristan and Isolde BBC / Metropolitan Opera synopsis
- Tristan und Isolde resource site Comprehensive website containing source material and musical motives
- Seattle Opera Performance Seattle Opera link
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tristan_und_Isolde&oldid=917744052'
Tristan and Isolde by Herbert James Draper
Tristan and Iseult is a romance story, retold in numerous sources with as many variations since the 12th century. The story is a tragedy about the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan (Tristram, etc.) and the Irish princess Iseult (Isolde, Yseult, etc.). The narrative predates and most likely influenced the Arthurian romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, and has had a substantial impact on Western art and literature. While the details of the story differ from one author to another, the overall plot structure remains much the same.
- 1Narratives of the legend
- 2Origins and analogues
- 3Courtly and common branches of early Tristan literature
- 4Later versions
- 6Modern works
Narratives of the legend[edit]
Tristan and Isolde by Hughes Merle
The story and character of Tristan vary from author to author; even the spelling of his name varies a great deal, although 'Tristan' is the most popular spelling. Nevertheless, there are two main traditions of the Tristan legend. The early tradition comprised the French romances of Thomas of Britain and Béroul, two poets from the second half of the 12th century. Later traditions come from the vast Prose Tristan (c. 1240), which was markedly different from the earlier tales written by Thomas and Béroul.
Tristan & Isolde by John Duncan
Tristan And Isolde Opera Music
After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult (also appearing under various spellings) for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to marry. Along the way, they ingest a love potion which causes the pair to fall madly in love. In the courtly version, the potion's effects last a lifetime, but, in the common versions, the potion's effects wane after three years. In some versions, they ingest the potion accidentally; in others, the potion's maker instructs Iseult to share it with Mark, but she deliberately gives it to Tristan instead. Although Iseult marries Mark, she and Tristan are forced by the potion to seek one another, as lovers. While the typical noble Arthurian character would be shamed by such an act, the love potion that controls them frees Tristan and Iseult from responsibility. The king's advisors repeatedly endeavour to have the pair tried for adultery, but the couple continually use trickery to preserve their façade of innocence. In Béroul's version, the love potion eventually wears off, and the two lovers are free to make their own choice as to whether to cease their adulterous relationship or to continue.
As with the Arthur-Lancelot-Guineverelove triangle in the medieval courtly love motif, Tristan, King Mark, and Iseult of Ireland all love each other. Tristan honours and respects King Mark as his mentor and adopted father; Iseult is grateful that Mark is kind to her; and Mark loves Tristan as his son and Iseult as a wife. But every night, each has horrible dreams about the future. Tristan's uncle eventually learns of the affair and seeks to entrap his nephew and his bride. Also present is the endangerment of a fragile kingdom, the cessation of war between Ireland and Cornwall (Dumnonia). Mark acquires what seems proof of their guilt and resolves to punish them: Tristan by hanging and Iseult by burning at the stake, later lodging her in a leper colony. Tristan escapes on his way to the gallows. He makes a miraculous leap from a chapel and rescues Iseult. The lovers escape into the forest of Morrois and take shelter there until discovered by Mark. They make peace with Mark after Tristan's agreement to return Iseult of Ireland to Mark and leave the country. Tristan then travels to Brittany, where he marries (for her name and her beauty) Iseult of the White Hands, daughter of Hoel of Brittany and sister of Kahedin.
Association with King Arthur and demise[edit]
The earliest surviving versions already incorporate references to King Arthur and his court. The connection between Tristan and Iseult and the Arthurian legend was expanded over time, and sometime shortly after the completion of the Vulgate Cycle (the Lancelot-Grail) in the first quarter of the 13th century, two authors created the Prose Tristan, which fully establishes Tristan as a Knight of the Round Table who even participates in the Quest for the Holy Grail. The Prose Tristan became the common medieval tale of Tristan and Iseult that would provide the background for Thomas Malory, the English author who wrote Le Morte d'Arthur over two centuries later.
Tristan, Iseult and Mark in The End of the Song by Edmund Leighton
In the Prose Tristan and works derived from it, Tristan is mortally wounded by King Mark, who strikes Tristan with a lance from Morgan le Fay while Tristan is playing a harp for Iseult. The poetic versions of the Tristan legend offer a very different account of the hero's death. According to Thomas' version, Tristan was wounded by a poison lance while attempting to rescue a young woman from six knights. Tristan sends his friend Kahedin to find Iseult of Ireland, the only person who can heal him. Tristan tells Kahedin to sail back with white sails if he is bringing Iseult, and black sails if he is not. Iseult agrees to return to Tristan with Kahedin, but Tristan's jealous wife, Iseult of the White Hands, lies to Tristan about the colour of the sails. Tristan dies of grief, thinking that Iseult has betrayed him, and Iseult dies swooning over his corpse. Several versions of the Prose Tristan include the traditional account of Tristan's death found in the poetic versions.
Post-death[edit]
Geneviève and Lancelot at the Tombs of Isolde and Tristan by Eugénie Servières
In French sources, such as those picked over in the English translation by Hilaire Belloc in 1903, it is stated that a thick bramble briar grows out of Tristan's grave, growing so much that it forms a bower and roots itself into Iseult's grave. It goes on that King Mark tries to have the branches cut three separate times, and each time the branches grow back and intertwine. This behaviour of briars would have been very familiar to medieval people who worked on the land. Later tellings sweeten this aspect of the story, by having Tristan's grave grow a briar, but Iseult's grave grow a rose tree, which then intertwine with each other. Further variants refine this aspect even more, with the two plants being said to have been hazel and honeysuckle.
A few later stories even record that the lovers had a number of children. In some stories they produced a son and a daughter they named after themselves; these children survived their parents and had adventures of their own. In the French romance Ysaie le Triste (Ysaie the Sad), the eponymous hero is the son of Tristan and Iseult; he becomes involved with the fairy king Oberon and marries a girl named Martha, who bears him a son named Mark. Spanish Tristan el Joven also dealt with Tristan's son, here named Tristan of Leonis.[1]
Origins and analogues[edit]
There are many theories present about the origins of Tristanian legend, but historians disagree over which is the most accurate.
British[edit]
The mid-6th-century Drustanus Stone monument in Cornwall has an inscription seemingly referring to Drustan, son of Cunomorus ('Mark'). However, not all historians agree that the Drustan referred to is the archetype of Tristan.
There are references to March ap Meichion ('Mark') and Trystan in the Welsh Triads, in some of the gnomic poetry, the Mabinogion stories, and in the 11th-century hagiography of Illtud. A character called Drystan appears as one of King Arthur's advisers at the end of The Dream of Rhonabwy, an early 13th-century tale in the Welsh prose collection known as the Mabinogion. Iseult is listed along with other great men and women of Arthur's court in another, much earlier Mabinogion tale, Culhwch and Olwen.[2]
Irish[edit]
Possible Irish antecedents to the Tristan legend have received much scholarly attention. An ill-fated triantán an ghrá or love triangle features into a number of Irish works, most notably in the text called Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne or The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne. In the story, the aging Fionn mac Cumhaill takes the young princess, Gráinne, to be his wife. At the betrothal ceremony, however, she falls in love with Diarmuid, one of Fionn's most trusted warriors. Gráinne gives a sleeping potion to all present but him, eventually convincing him to elope with her. The fugitive lovers are then pursued all over Ireland by the Fianna.
Another Irish analogue is Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin, preserved in the 14th-century Yellow Book of Lecan. In this tale, Cano is an exiled Scottish king who accepts the hospitality of King Marcan of Ui Maile. His young wife, Credd, drugs all present, and then convinces Cano to be her lover. They try to keep a tryst while at Marcan's court, but are frustrated by courtiers. Eventually Credd kills herself and Cano dies of grief.
In the Ulster Cycle there is the text Clann Uisnigh or Deirdre of the Sorrows in which Naoise mac Usnech falls for Deirdre, who was imprisoned by King Conchobar mac Nessa due to a prophecy that Ulster would plunge into civil war due to men fighting for her beauty. Conchobar had pledged to marry Deirdre himself in time to avert war, and takes his revenge on Clann Uisnigh. The death of Naoise and his kin leads many Ulstermen to defect to Connacht, including Conchobar's stepfather and trusted ally Fergus mac Róich, eventually precipitating the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
Persian and Classical[edit]
Some scholars suggest that the 11th-century Persian story Vis and Rāmin must have been the model for the Tristan legend because the similarities are too great to be coincidental.[3][4] The evidence for the Persian origin of Tristan and Iseult is very circumstantial[5] and different theories have been suggested how this Persian story might have reached the West, some suggesting story-telling exchanges during the crusades in Syrian court[4] and through minstrels who had free access to both Crusader and Saracen camps in the Holy Land.[6]
Some believe Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe, as well as the story of Ariadne at Naxos might have also contributed to the development of the Tristan legend.[3] The sequence in which Tristan and Iseult die and become interwoven trees also parallels Ovid's love story of Baucis and Philemon in which two lovers are transformed in death into two different trees sprouting from the same trunk. However this also occurs in the saga of Deidre of the Sorrows making the link more tenuous and ignores the (now lost) oral traditions of preliterate societies, relying only on written records which are known to have been damaged – especially during the Dissolution of the Monasteries – during the development of modern nation states such as England and France.
Courtly and common branches of early Tristan literature[edit]
Yseult by Gaston Bussière
Courtly branch[edit]
The earliest representation of what scholars name the 'courtly' version of the Tristan legend is in the work of Thomas of Britain, dating from 1173. Only ten fragments of his Tristan poem, representing six manuscripts, have ever been located: the manuscripts in Turin and Strassburg are now lost, leaving two in Oxford, one in Cambridge and one in Carlisle.[3] In his text, Thomas names another trouvère who also sang of Tristan, though no manuscripts of this earlier version have been discovered. There is also a passage telling how Iseult wrote a short lai out of grief that sheds light on the development of an unrelated legend concerning the death of a prominent troubadour, as well as the composition of lais by noblewomen of the 12th century.
The next essential text for knowledge of the courtly branch of the Tristan legend is the abridged translation of Thomas made by Brother Robert at the request of King Haakon Haakonson of Norway in 1227. King Haakon had wanted to promote Angevin-Norman culture at his court, and so commissioned the translation of several French Arthurian works. The Nordic version presents a complete, direct narrative of the events in Thomas' Tristan, with the telling omission of his numerous interpretive diversions. It is the only complete representative of the courtly branch in its formative period.[7]
Preceding the work of Brother Robert chronologically is the Tristan and Isolt of Gottfried von Strassburg, written circa 1211–1215. The poem was Gottfried's only known work, and was left incomplete due to his death with the retelling reaching half-way through the main plot. The poem was later completed by authors such as Heinrich von Freiberg and Ulrich von Türheim, but with the 'common' branch of the legend as the ideal source.[8]
Common branch[edit]
The earliest representation of the 'common branch' is Béroul's Le Roman de Tristan, the first part of which is generally dated between 1150 and 1170, and the latter part between 1181 and 1190. The branch is so named due to its representation of an earlier non-chivalric, non-courtly, tradition of story-telling, making it more reflective of the Dark Ages than of the refined High Middle Ages. In this respect, they are similar to Layamon's Brut and the Perlesvaus. As with Thomas' works, knowledge of Béroul's is limited. There were a few substantial fragments of his works discovered in the 19th century, and the rest was reconstructed from later versions.[9]
The more substantial illustration of the common branch is the German version by Eilhart von Oberge. Eilhart's version was popular, but pales in comparison with the later Gottfried.[8]
Questions regarding a common source[edit]
The French medievalist Joseph Bédier thought all the Tristan legends could be traced to a single original poem, adapted by Thomas of Brittany into French from an original Cornish or Breton source. He dubbed this hypothetical original the 'Ur-Tristan', and wrote his still-popular Romance of Tristan and Iseult as an attempt to reconstruct what this might have been like. In all likelihood, common branch versions reflect an earlier form of the story; accordingly, Bédier relied heavily on Eilhart, Béroul and Gottfried von Strassburg, and incorporated material from other versions to make a cohesive whole. A new English translation of Bédier's Roman de Tristan et Iseut (1900) by Edward J. Gallagher was published in 2013 by Hackett Publishing Company. A translation by Hilaire Belloc, first published in 1913, it was published in 1958 as a Caedmon Audio recording read by Claire Bloom[10] and republished in 2005.
Later versions[edit]
Tristan and Iseult on their way to Cornwall, a medieval miniature by Évrard d'Espinques (15th century)
French[edit]
Contemporary with Béroul and Thomas, Marie de France presented a Tristan episode in one of her lais: 'Chevrefoil'. It concerns another of Tristan's clandestine returns to Cornwall in which the banished hero signals his presence to Iseult by means of an inscription on a branch of a hazelnut tree placed on the road she will travel. The title refers to the symbiosis of the honeysuckle and hazelnut tree which die when separated, as do Tristan and Iseult: 'Ni vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.' ('Neither you without me, nor me without you.') This episode is reminiscent of one in the courtly branch when Tristan uses wood shavings put in a stream as signals to meet in the garden of Mark's palace.
There are also two 12th-century Folies Tristan, Old French poems identified as the Berne and the Oxford versions, which relate Tristan's return to Marc's court under the guise of a madman. Besides their own importance as episodic additions to the Tristan story and masterpieces of narrative structure, these relatively short poems significantly contributed to restoring the missing parts of Béroul's and Thomas' incomplete texts.[11]
Chrétien de Troyes claims to have written a Tristan story, though no part of it has ever been found. He mentions this in the introduction to Cligès, a romance that many see as a kind of anti-Tristan with a happy ending. Some scholars speculate his Tristan was ill-received, prompting Chretien to write Cligès – a story with no Celtic antecedent – to make amends.[12]
After Béroul and Thomas, the most important development in French Tristaniana is a complex grouping of texts known broadly as the Prose Tristan. Extremely popular in the 13th and 14th century, the narratives of these lengthy versions vary in detail from manuscript to manuscript. Free stylish fonts download. Modern editions run twelve volumes for the long version, which includes Tristan's participation in the Quest for the Holy Grail, or five volumes for a shorter version without the Grail Quest.[13] It had a great influence on later medieval literature, and inspired parts of the Post-Vulgate Cycle and the Roman de Palamedes.
English[edit]
The earliest complete source of the Tristan material in English was Sir Tristrem, a romance of some 3344 lines written circa 1300. It is preserved in the famous Auchinleck manuscript at the National Library of Scotland. The narrative largely follows the courtly tradition. As is true with many medieval English adaptations of French Arthuriana, the poem's artistic achievement can only be described as average, though some critics have tried to rehabilitate it, claiming it is a parody. Its first editor, Walter Scott, provided a sixty line ending to the story, which has been printed with the romance in every subsequent edition.[14]
The only other medieval handling of the Tristan legend in English is Thomas Malory's The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, a shortened 'translation' of the French Prose Tristan, in his Le Morte d'Arthur. Since the Winchester Manuscript surfaced in 1934, there has been much scholarly debate whether the Tristan narrative, like all the episodes in Le Morte d'Arthur, was originally intended to be an independent piece or part of a larger work.
Nordic[edit]
The popularity of Brother Robert's version spawned a unique parody, Saga Af Tristram ok Ísodd, as well as the poem Tristrams kvæði. In the collection of Old Norse prose-translations of Marie de France's lais – called Strengleikar (Stringed Instruments) – two lais with Arthurian content have been preserved, one of them being the 'Chevrefoil', translated as 'Geitarlauf'.[15]
By the 19th century, scholars had found Tristan legends spread across the Nordic world, from Denmark to the Faroe Islands. These stories, however, diverged greatly from their medieval precursors. In one Danish ballad, for instance, Tristan and Iseult are made brother and sister. Other unlikely innovations occur in two popular Danish chapbooks of the late 18th-century Tristans saga ok Inionu and En tragoedisk Historie om den ædle og tappre Tistrand, in which Iseult is made the princess of India. The popularity of these chapbooks inspired Icelandic poets Sigurður Breiðfjörð and Níels Jónsson to write rímur, long verse narratives, inspired by the Tristan legend.[16]
Dutch and Welsh[edit]
A 158-line fragment of a Dutch version (ca. 1250) of Thomas of Britain's Tristan exists. It is being kept in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, Series nova 3968. A short Tristan narrative, perhaps related to the Béroul text, exists in six Welsh manuscripts dating from the late 16th to the mid 17th century.[17]
Spanish[edit]
In the first third of the 14th century, Arcipreste de Hita wrote his version of the Tristan story, Carta enviada por Hiseo la Brunda a Tristán. Respuesta de Tristán was a unique 15th-century romance written in the form of imaginary letters between the two lovers. Libro del muy esforzado caballero Don Tristán de Leonís y de sus grandes hechos en armas, Spanish reworking of the Prose Tristan, was first published in Valladolid in 1501.
Italian[edit]
Giovanni dal Ponte's Two couples - Paris and Helen, Tristan and Iseult (1410s)
In Italy, there were many cantari, or oral poems performed in the public square, either about Tristan or frequently referencing him, including Cantari di Tristano; Due Tristani; Quando Tristano e Lancielotto combattiero al petrone di Merlino; Ultime imprese e morte Tristano; and Vendetta che fe Messer Lanzelloto de la Morte di Messer Tristano.
There are also four differing versions of the Prose Tristan in medieval Italy, most named after their place of composition or library in which they are currently to be found: Tavola Ritonda, Tristano Panciaticchiano, Tristano Riccardiano, and Tristano Veneto.[18]
Slavic[edit]
A 13th-century verse romance exists in Czech, based on the German Tristan poems by Gottfried von Strassburg, Heinrich von Freiberg and Eilhart von Oberge. It is the only known verse representative of the Tristan story in a Slavic language.[19]
The Belarusian prose Povest o Tryshchane represents the furthest eastern advance of the legend, and, composed in the 1560s, is considered by some critics to be the last 'medieval' Tristan or Arthurian text period. Its lineage goes back to the Tristano Veneto. Venice, at that time, controlled large parts of the Serbo-Croatian language area, engendering a more active literary and cultural life there than in most of the Balkans during this period. The manuscript of the Povest states that it was translated from a (lost) Serbian intermediary. Scholars assume that the legend must have journeyed from Venice, through its Balkan colonies, finally reaching a last outpost in this Slavic language.[20]
Art[edit]
Tristan and Iseult playing chess while drinking the love potion aboard a ship (medieval miniature, 1470)
The Tristan story was represented in several art media, from ivory mirror-cases to the 13th-century Sicilian Tristan Quilt. Many of the manuscripts with literary versions are illuminated with miniatures.
Modern works[edit]
Literature[edit]
In English, the Tristan story suffered the same fate as the Matter of Britain generally. After being mostly ignored for about three centuries, there was a renaissance of original Arthurian literature, mostly narrative verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tristan material in this revival included Alfred Tennyson's The Last Tournament, one of his Idylls of the King; Matthew Arnold's Tristram and Iseult. Another Victorian work was Algernon Charles Swinburne's epic poem Tristram of Lyonesse.
Thomas Hardy's The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse is a one-act play which was published in 1923 (the book includes an imaginary drawing of the castle at the period).[21]Rutland Boughton's opera The Queen of Cornwall (1924) was based on Thomas Hardy's play.
After World War II, most Tristan texts were in the form of prose novels or short stories:
- The Cornish writer Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch ('Q') started Castle Dor, a retelling of the Tristan and Iseult myth in modern circumstances with an innkeeper in the role of King Mark, his wife as Iseult and a Breton onion-seller as Tristan, the plot set in 'Troy', his name for his home town of Fowey. The book was left unfinished at Quiller-Couch's death and was completed many years later, in 1962, by Daphne du Maurier.
- Rosemary Sutcliff also wrote two early adult/children's novels based on the story of Tristan and Iseult. The first, Tristan and Iseult, is a retelling of the story for young adults and was first published in 1971. It received the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award in 1972, and was runner-up for the 1972 Carnegie Medal. It is set primarily in Cornwall in the southern peninsula of Britain. The story appears again as a chapter of her later Arthurian novel, The Sword and the Circle (1981).
- Novelist Thomas Berger retold the story of Tristan and Isolde in his 1978 interpretation of Arthurian legend, Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel.
- Diana L. Paxson's 1988 novel The White Raven tells the tale of Tristan and Iseult, called in her book Drustan and Esseilte, from the perspective of Iseult's handmaiden Brangien ('Branwen'), who was mentioned in various of the medieval stories.
- Joseph Bédier's Romance of Tristan and Iseult is quoted as a source by John Updike in the afterword to his 1994 novel Brazil about the lovers Tristão and Isabel.
- Bernard Cornwell includes a 'historical' interpretation of the legend as a side story in Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur, a 1996 entry in The Warlord Chronicles series.
- Rosalind Miles wrote a trilogy about Tristan and Isolde: The Queen of the Western Isle (2002), The Maid of the White Hands (2003), and The Lady of the Sea (2004).
- Nancy McKenzie wrote a book Prince of Dreams: A Tale of Tristan and Essylte as part of her Arthurian series in 2003.
- In Bengali literature the story has been depicted by author Sunil Gangopadhyay in the novel Sonali Dukkho.
- In Harry Turtledove's alternate historyRuled Britannia, Christopher Marlowe (who lives longer in the novel's timeline than he did in our history) writes a play called Yseult and Tristan to compete with his friend William Shakespeare's immensely popular Hamlet. No details of the play are given.
Music[edit]
Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde celebrated in a 1933 German stamp
In 1832, Gaetano Donizetti references this story in his opera L'elisir d'amore as the character of Adina sings the story to the ensemble, inspiring Nemorino to ask the charlatan Dulcamara for the magic elixir. Premiered uin 1865, Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde depicts Tristan as a doomed romantic figure, while Isolde fulfils Wagner's quintessential feminine rôle as the redeeming woman.
Twentieth-century composers also used the legend (often with Wagnerian overtones) in their compositions. Olivier Messiaen built his Turangalîla-Symphonie around the story. Hans Werner Henze's Tristan borrowed freely from the Wagnerian version as well as retellings of the legend.
- The Swiss composer Frank Martin wrote a chamber opera Le vin herbé between 1938–1940 after being influenced by Wagner.
- Blind Guardian, a power metal band from Germany, also has a song inspired by Tristan and Iseult's story, 'The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight', from their A Night at the Opera album.
- Colin Meloy's former band Tarkio have a song entitled 'Tristan and Iseult' from their Sea Songs for Landlocked Sailers ep.
- Patrick Wolf, English singer and songwriter, has a song about the Tristan and Iseult legend: 'Tristan' from his second album Wind in the Wires.
- Inspired by Thomas Hardy's play The Famous Tragedy of The Queen of Cornwall the English composer Rutland Boughton composed the music-drama The Queen of Cornwall. The first performance took place at the Glastonbury Festival in 1924. Already famous for 'The Immortal Hour' and 'Bethlehem', Boughton's growth as a unique and powerful operatic composer is evident in this treatment of the Tristram and Isolde legend. Feeling that Hardy's play offered too much unrelieved grimness he received the playwright's permission to import a handful of lyrics from his earlier published poetical works. The result is an altogether impressive and effective work, thought by many to be Boughton's masterpiece in this genre. In 2010 it was recorded on the Dutton Epoch label, in which Ronald Corp conducts the New London Orchestra, members of the London Chorus and with soloists Neal Davies (King Mark), Heather Shipp (Queen Iseult), Jacques Imbrailo (Sir Tristam) and Joan Rodgers (Iseult of Brittany).
Films[edit]
Tristan And Isolde Opera Running Time
The story has also been adapted into film many times.[22]
- The earliest is probably the 1909 French film Tristan et Yseult, an early, silent version of the story.[23] This was followed by another French film of the same name two years later, which offered a unique addition to the story. Here, it is Tristan's jealous slave Rosen who tricks the lovers into drinking the love potion, then denounces them to Mark. Mark has pity on the two lovers, but they commit double suicide anyway.[23] A third silent French version appeared in 1920, and follows the legend fairly closely.[23]
- One of the most celebrated and controversial Tristan films was 1943's L'Éternel Retour (The Eternal Return), directed by Jean Delannoy (screenplay by Jean Cocteau). It is a contemporary retelling of the story with a man named Patrice in the Tristan role fetching a wife for his friend Marke. However, an evil dwarf tricks them into drinking a love potion, and the familiar plot ensues.[23] The film was made in France during the Vichy regime, and elements in the movie reflect Nazi ideology, with the beautiful, blonde hero and heroine off-set by the Untermensch dwarf. The dwarf is given a larger role than in most interpretations of the legend; its conniving rains havoc on the lovers, much like the Jews of Nazi stereotypes.
- This was followed by the avant-garde French film Tristan et Iseult in 1972 and the Irish Lovespell, featuring Nicholas Clay as Tristan and Kate Mulgrew as Iseult; coincidentally, Clay went on to play Lancelot in John Boorman's epic Excalibur.[23]
- The 1970 Spanish film Tristana is only tangentially related to the Tristan story. The Tristan role is assumed by the female character Tristana, who is forced to care for her aging uncle, Don Lope, though she wishes to marry Horacio.[23]
- The popular German film Fire and Sword premiered in 1981. It was very accurate to the story, though it cut the Iseult of Brittany subplot.[23]
- French director François Truffaut adapted the subject to modern times for his 1981 film La Femme d'à côté (The Woman Next Door), while 1988's In the Shadow of the Raven transported the characters to medieval Iceland. Here, Trausti and Isolde are warriors from rival tribes who come into conflict when Trausti kills the leader of Isolde's tribe, but a local bishop makes peace and arranges their marriage.[23]
- Bollywood director Subhash Ghai transfers the story to modern India and the United States in his 1997 musical Pardes. The Indian American Kishorilal (Amrish Puri) raises his orphaned nephew Arjun (Shahrukh Khan). Eventually, Pardes sends Arjun back to India to lure the beautiful Ganga (Mahima Chaudhary) as a bride for his selfish, shallow son Rajiv (Apoorva Agnihotri). Arjun falls for Ganga, and struggles to remain loyal to his cousin and beloved uncle.
- The 2002 French animated film Tristan et Iseut is a bowdlerized version of the traditional tale aimed at a family audience.
- The legend was given a relatively high-budget treatment with 2006's Tristan & Isolde, produced by Tony Scott and Ridley Scott, written by Dean Georgaris, directed by Kevin Reynolds, and starring James Franco and Sophia Myles. In this version, Tristan is a Cornish warrior who was raised by Lord Marke after his parents were killed at a young age. In a fight with the Irish, Tristan defeats Morholt, the Irish King's second, but is poisoned in the process. The poison dulls all his senses and his companions believe him dead. He is sent off in a boat meant to cremate a dead body. Isolde, dismayed over her unwilling betrothal to Morholt, leaves her home and finds Tristan on the Irish coast. She tells Tristan that she is called Bragnae, which is the name of her maidservant. Isolde takes care of him and hides him from her father. They spend long days together and come to care for each other. Eventually they confess their feelings for one another and consummate their love. Tristan's boat is discovered and Isolde's father begins a search for a Cornish warrior in Ireland. Isolde helps Tristan escape but cannot leave with him. Tristan returns to England and learns of a tournament between the Cornish tribes for the hand of the Irish princess named Isolde. He agrees to participate to win the princess as Marke's wife. After winning the tournament and discovering that the princess is the woman who had rescued him, Tristan is devastated but decides to bury his feelings, because her marriage to Marke would end decades of bloodshed. Eventually Tristan cannot stand to be apart from Isolde any longer and they start their adulterous relationship. Later, they are found out but Marke frees them after hearing their story. Tristan, however, returns to defend Marke against a rebellion. He dies a hero, with Isolde at his side.
See also[edit]
- Medieval hunting (terminology)
Notes and references[edit]
- ^N. J. Lacy (et al.). 'Carta enviada por Hiseo la Brunda Tristan', 'Repuesta de Tristan' from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York : Garland Publishing, 1991.
- ^Jeffrey Gantz (translator), Culhwch and Olwen, from The Mabinogion, Penguin, 1976. ISBN0-14-044322-3
- ^ abcStewart Gregory (translator), Thomas of Britain, Roman de Tristan, New York: Garland Publishers, 1991. ISBN0-8240-4034-1
- ^ abFakhr al-Dīn Gurgānī, and Dick Davis. 2008. Vis & Ramin. Washington, DC: Mage publishers.
- ^Grimbert, Joan T. 1995. Tristan and Isolde: a casebook. New York: Garland Pub.
- ^Grimbert, Joan T. 1995. Tristan and Isolde: a casebook. p. 21.
- ^P. Schach, The Saga of Tristram and Isond, University of Nebraska Press, 1973
- ^ abNorris J. Lacy et al. 'Gottfried von Strassburg' from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, New York: Garland, 1991.
- ^'Early French Tristan Poems', from Norris J. Lacy (editor), Arthurian Archives, Cambridge, England; Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1998. ISBN0-8240-4034-1
- ^Trove, National Library of Australia[1]
- ^Norris J. Lacy (editor) Arthurian Archives: Early French Tristan Poems. Cambridge (England); Rochester, NY : D.S. Brewer, 1998. ISBN0-8240-4034-1
- ^N. J. Lacy (et al.). Cliges from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York : Garland Publishing, 1991.
- ^Before any editions of the Prose Tristan were attempted, scholars were dependent on an extended summary and analysis of all the manuscripts by Eilert Löseth in 1890 (republished in 1974). Of the modern editions, the long version is made up of two editions: Renée L. Curtis, ed. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, vols. 1–3 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1963–1985) and Philippe Ménard, exec. ed. Le Roman de Tristan en Prose, vols. 1–9 (Geneva: Droz, 1987–1997). Curtis' edition of a simple manuscript (Carpentras 404) covers Tristan's ancestry and the traditional legend up to Tristan's madness. However, the massive amount of manuscripts in existence dissuaded other scholars from attempting what Curtis had done until Ménard hit upon the idea of using multiple teams of scholars to tackle the infamous Vienna 2542 manuscript. His edition follows from Curtis' and ends with Tristan's death and the first signs of Arthur's fall. Richard Trachsler is currently preparing an edition of the 'continuation' of the Prose Tristan. The shorter version, which contains no Grail Quest, is published by Joël Blanchard in five volumes.
- ^Alan Lupak (editor). Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications. 1994.
- ^ von Rudolph, Meissner (trans.), Die Strengleikar : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der altnordischen Prosalitteratur (Halle a.S : M. Niemeyer, 1902)
- ^N. J. Lacy (et al.). Tristan from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York : Garland Publishing, 1991.
- ^The Tristan Legend Hill. Leeds England: Leeds Medieval Studies. 1973.
- ^N. J. Lacy (et al.) (1991). The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing.
- ^N. J. Lacy (et al.). Czech Arthurian Literature from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York : Garland Publishing, 1991.
- ^Kipel, Z (c. 1988). The Byelorussian Tristan. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN0-8240-7598-6.
- ^Hardy, Thomas (1923) The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse. London: Macmillan; two drawings by Hardy reproduced as plates
- ^'Films named Tristan and Isolde'. Internet Movie Database.
- ^ abcdefghHarty, Kevin J. 'Arthurian Film from the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester'.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tristan and Iseult. |
- Tristan and Iseult public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- (in French)Tristan and Iseult, audio version
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tristan_and_Iseult&oldid=919434403'