Tristan und Isolde, Opera Bastille, Paris: 17 January-4 February 2023

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In this extraordinary production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Peter Sellars calms the heaving emotions of the two protagonists in a setting stripped of all earthly considerations.

Tristan und Isolde is an immense operatic poem, a song of love and death inspired by the medieval legend of Tristan and Iseult and the passion that Richard Wagner nurtured for Mathilde, the wife of his rich Zurich patron, Otto Wesendonck. In musical terms, the opera marks a turning point in Wagner’s works and indeed in the history of Western music for its audacious harmonies and the way in which the composer overlays different rhythms, thus creating a languishing and endlessly prolonged tension. In this extraordinary production, Peter Sellars calms the heaving emotions of the two protagonists in a setting stripped of all earthly considerations. Detached from the stage, suspended like an altarpiece, Bill Viola’s videos portray the initiatory quest of the lovers to attain their nirvana. The association of these two major artists gives life to a unique and total work of art.

  • Tristan und Isolde

    Opera in three acts

    • Music:

      Richard Wagner - (1813 - 1883)

    • Libretto:

      Richard Wagner

    • Conductor:

      Gustavo Dudamel

    • Director:

      Peter Sellars

    • Video:

      Bill Viola

    • Costume design:

      Martin Pakledinaz

    • Lighting design:

      James F. Ingalls

    • Chorus master:

      Alessandro Di Stefano

    • Isolde:

      • Mary Elizabeth Williams

    • Tristan:

      • Gwyn Hughes Jones

    • Brangäne:

      • Okka von der Damerau

    • Kurwenal:

      • Ryan Speedo Green

    • König Marke:

      • Eric Owens

    • Melot:

      • Neal Cooper

    • Ein Hirt, ein Seeman:

      • Maciej Kwaśnikowski

    • Ein Steuermann:

      • NN

Rafal Milach / Magnum Photos / OnP
Rafal Milach / Magnum Photos / OnP

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