Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Tristan und Isolde

Heading for Tristan und Isolde tomorrow!


"I fear the opera will be banned – unless the whole thing is parodied in a bad performance –: only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad, – I cannot imagine it otherwise."
Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck

My great love is Tristan und Isolde, and for that Wagner will have his place in the history of European culture because there he drops all his ideological bullshit, and all his dangerous sides. And finally he is really concentrating on his music and his poetry. And here he develops all his greatness. There is the Wagner that I am looking for.
Gottfried Wagner, TV documentary

"Tristan is not about 'being', it’s about 'becoming'. And it’s not an opera about love, but about death. The fear of death. This is the motor of the opera. There’s nothing more democratic than death."
Daniel Barenboim before his Met debut with Tristan und Isolde

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