Love and Death for a metaphysical opera

Inspired by a medieval legend of Celtic origin, Tristan und Isolde led the musical vanguard of its time, taking tonality to a point of no return. Furthermore, its chromaticism, harmonic instability, exacerbated voluptuosity and orchestral anguish - “unhealthy music”, in the words of the critic Eduard Hanslick- constitute a symbol of the power of sentiment over reason, drawing us into the profound mystery of the fathomless night, of an impossible love which transcends life and can only be attained beyond death.

This opera represents the peak of Wagnerian musical drama, where music, text and scenic action come together in a unit of continuity that is a pinnacle of German Romanticism and its metaphysical themes. The impact of Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy on Richard Wagner played a role, along with the overwhelming passion the composer felt for Mathilde Wesendonck, who was the inspiration for his opera and the wife of his patron.

The Teatro de la Maestranza premieres its new house production by the Hispanic-Brazilian Allex Aguilera – who previously staged Tristan under conductor Zubin Mehta- with the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra (ROSS) in the pit, conducted by Hungarian Henrik Nánási. Stuart Skelton, Elisabet Strid and Agnieszka Rehlis head a stellar cast with this essential title about desire, sexuality, unattainable love, and death that returns to the stage of the Teatro de la Maestranza, after a 14-year absence.

One of the most beautiful and perturbing expereinces one can experience in an opera theatre.

Libretto by Richard Wagner. Premiere at the National Theatre of Munich on June 10, 1865.