The idea behind Wagner’s magnificent musical drama is linked with the wish to define love, to give an all-encompassing analysis of the wonder of the phenomenon. “Although in my own life I have not experienced true, loving happiness I wish to raise a monument to this most beautiful reverie,” wrote the German maestro. The source of Wagner’s “drama of emotions” was a medieval legend about a knight and a beautiful lady whom Fate has decreed must become the wife of another. The story, based on the classical love triangle, was transformed by the composer into a “truly metaphysical opus”. The refined, tense and ecstatic music corresponds absolutely and exactly with the world of languor and unquenched passions that form the emotional atmosphere of the work. The all-consuming emotion of Tristan and Isolde is contrasted against the higher wisdom of King Marke. In his philosophical monologue at the end of Act II and in the closing scene of Act III, the King demonstrates true noblesse, resolution of spirit and readiness to commit self-sacrifice.
Nadezhda Kulygina
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