« Thus we died, undivided, one for ever without end, never waking, never fearing, embraced namelessly in love, given entirely to each other, living only in our love! » ACTE 2, LOVE DUET
LEGENDARY PASSION
MAGIC AND LOVE
LIEBESTOD*
Libretto by Richard Wagner
Tristan must bring Isolde, Princess of Ireland, who is promised in marriage to King Marc, back to Cornwall. Having previously tended to Tristan and his wounds, the young woman feels betrayed and decides to take revenge by killing him before taking her own life with a death potion. But her confidante turns the drink into a love potion, transforming their budding love into a violent, indestructible passion…
EROS AND THANATOS
Exiled to Switzerland after taking an “anarchist” stance in Dresden, where he was employed as a court conductor, Richard Wagner was not lacking in inspiration despite being somewhat isolated on the psychological level. While composing the first parts of the Ring of the Nibelung cycle, he took a break to work on a new opera called Tristan und Isolde. This would become one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of opera. It is said that Mathilde Wesendonck, the young wife of his Swiss host, inspired the choice of subject. The work premiered in 1865, almost six years after its completion, with Hans von Bülow conducting and with financial support from Ludwig II of Bavaria.
In Wagner’s work, the legendary love story becomes a musical drama, stripped of the superfluous, focusing on the main events and imbued with a symbolic and philosophical dimension. The famous love potion is treated differently here, in that it merely fans the flames of passion between two people who are already in love, leading to their death and tragic end. Tristan and Isolde’s love is a pure, almost mystical passion, their contemplation aspiring to a union that is inconceivable during their lifetime. Love and death overlap here, as expressed in Isolde’s final, ecstatic “Liebestod”, a highlight of the operatic repertoire. If a single work were to personify Love, a sentiment that is omnipresent in opera, then Tristan und Isolde definitely fits the bill.
- FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE ORW !
- NEW PRODUCTION
OPÉRA ROYAL DE WALLONIE-LIÈGE
- WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE TAX SHELTER OF THE FEDERAL BELGIAN GOVERNMENT AND BEL ARTS FUND
* GERMAN TERM RELATED TO THE WORK, TRANSLATED AS “LOVE’S DEATH, A ROMANTIC CONCEPT OF UNION IN DEATH
