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Season 2024/2025
Musically highly romantic and crossing the threshold to modernity, Wagner lets his couple run with existential inexorability into a hopeless dilemma. Disturbing and fascinating in its uncompromising portrayal of obsessive love, this work - based on a myth - has become a myth itself.
Image gallery
Clay Hilley als Tristan, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Ruth Tromboukis
Irene Roberts als Brangäne, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
u. a. Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Nina Stemme als Isolde, Hansung Yoo als KurwenalBettina Stöß
Nina Stemme als Isolde, Clay Hilley als TristanBettina Stöß
Nina Stemme als Isolde, Clay Hilley als TristanBettina Stöß
Irene Roberts als Brangäne, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Irene Roberts als Brangäne, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Clay Hilley als Tristan, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Clay Hilley als Tristan, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Franz-Josef Selig als König Marke, Jörg Schörner als Melot, Hansung Yoo als Kurwenal, Clay Hilley als Tristan, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Franz-Josef Selig als König Marke, Jörg Schörner als MelotBettina Stöß
Nina Stemme als Isolde, Franz-Josef Selig als König Marke, Clay Hilley als Tristan, Hansung Yoo als KurwenalBettina Stöß
Clay Hilley als Tristan, Hansung Yoo als KurwenalBettina Stöß
Clay Hilley als Tristan, Hansung Yoo als Kurwenal, Clemens Bieber als Ein HirtBettina Stöß
Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
Franz-Josef Selig als König Marke, Nina Stemme als IsoldeBettina Stöß
- Conductor: Petr Popelka / Sir Donald Runnicles
- Director: Graham Vick
With Clay Hilley, Albert Pesendorfer / Georg Zeppenfeld / Derek Welton, Ricarda Merbeth / Stéphanie Müther, Thomas Lehman / Leonardo Lee, Jörg Schörner, Irene Roberts / Annika Schlicht a. o.
Tristan und Isolde
About the work
Betrayal, lost honour, crime and atonement, passionate love, a yearning for death and forgetting. The tale of Tristan and Isolde grew from a Celtic legend into today’s work of mythical stature. It inspired Richard Wagner to his “opus metaphysicum” [Friedrich Nietzsche].
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, with its decidedly romantic score, is considered a harbinger of modernism. The chord that introduces the opera – the famous “Tristan Chord”, one of the most hotly discussed items in the history of music – threw musicologists into disarray, challenging accepted ideas of tonality and harmony. Equally explosive is the love between Tristan and Isolde, who defy pressure to comply with conventions and moral codes.
Tristan, the “man of sorrow” who is ever mindful that his mother died giving birth to him, is in love with Isolde and yet determined to deliver her, as agreed, to his king, thereby breaking not one but two pledges. Isolde, too, is not blameless in this forbidden love affair, having in an earlier period spared the life of Tristan – who had stayed her hand with a look - instead of killing the murderer of Morold, her would-be bridegroom. She is increasingly estranged from her familiar domesticity, and, flouting all social norms, the couple inexorably approach their longed-for end – their own erasure?
About the production
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE continues to fascinate and disturb to this day. It has occupied philosophers, psychologists, writers, composers and musicologists. Briton Graham Vick, one of the most innovative stagers of opera in recent years, who worked and appeared at opera houses and festivals around the world and steered the fortunes of the Glyndebourne festival over many years, brought a solemnity to his rendering of the lovers’ story, rejecting over-dramatization.
He placed his protagonists in a drawing room that, to the casual observer, appears unremarkable but whose slightly worn elegance is speckled with details alluding to the archaic foundations beneath. With unsparing precision he charts the development of the love affair, showing us the effect it has on the couple over the years. And Tristan’s perplexing utterance from his monologue in the final act – “That awful potion, which taught me torment… I myself did mix and stir it!” – lies at the core of Vick’s slant on the material.
Derived from a literary myth, TRISTAN AND ISOLDE has itself acquired the characteristics of a myth. One message of Graham Vick’s production is that it is not given to us, as Wagner’s listeners and onlookers, to be too smug in our enjoyment of the spectacle. The tale of this pair of lovers, albeit coming to us through the mists of time, is far too close for that kind of comfort.
Additional information
In German with German and English surtitles
Opera in 3 acts
First performed on 10th June, 1865 in Munich
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 13th March, 2011
Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance
Participating artists
Petr Popelka (Musikalische Leitung)
Sir Graham Vick (Inszenierung)
Paul Brown (Bühne, Kostüme)
Wolfgang Göbbel (Licht)
Thomas Richter (Chöre)
Clay Hilley (Tristan)
Albert Pesendorfer (König Marke)
Ricarda Merbeth (Isolde)
Thomas Lehman (Kurwenal)
Jörg Schörner (Melot)
Irene Roberts (Brangäne)
Clemens Bieber (Ein Hirt)
Kieran Carrel (Seemann)
Jared Werlein (Steuermann)
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin (Chöre)
Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin (Orchester)
