Wagner Without Fear

by William Berger

  Not that the typical Wagner scholar would appreciate the comparison to Puccini any more than to Rumpelstiltskin. They traditionally prefer to think that all of the master’s ideas were, in some sense, entirely original. Wagner himself clouded the issue, saying his actual model for Lohengrin was the story of Zeus and Semele as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In that myth, the earthly Semele is not satisfied with her divine lover Zeus in human disguise, and insists he reveal himself to her in his full glorious essence. When he does, she is consumed. Readers sensitive to feminist issues will sniff out a theme here. Notice, in these examples, that it is the male lover whose nature is too magnificently powerful in its fullness to coexist with the woman’s in society.

  The Ovidian source of the story is very interesting, of course, but it does not explain the centrality of the name as the key to the hero’s identity. The following possibility of a source is sure to rankle some traditional Wagnerians. Some of the most striking examples of name power come to us from Jewish traditions, of all interesting places. God Himself has a name too sacred to be uttered by the pious—indeed, most Christians today probably don’t know it. God gave Adam power over the creatures by granting him the right to name them (Genesis 2:19–20), which is strange, since Adam was still the only person on earth. To this day, Jewish families name newborns after deceased relatives, since to name them after a live one might in some sense take life away from that person.

  One Jewish legend that particularly resonates in Lohengrin is that of the thirty-six tzaddikim. These are living saints who are so righteous in their lives and deeds that they are the sole reason God allows the world to continue. No one knows who the tzaddikim are—the man across the street or the neighborhood shoemaker might be one. (They are always men.) In some versions, they themselves do not know that they are tzaddikim until they are suddenly sent on a magical rescue mission revealed as a vision from God. In either case, they must always vanish after their deed is done. If ever they reveal their identities, their magical power disappears.

  This is a great deal more like the story of Lohengrin than anything in Ovid. The nineteenth century marked the first great interaction of Jews and Gentiles in central Europe, a process Wagner was vociferously and disastrously involved in, so there is no question that he could have been familiar with this story. He, of course, would never have admitted such a thing, but is it not plausible? What was his anti-Semitism but a perverted obsession and something of an inferiority complex? Bearing this in mind, Wagner’s claim of inspiration from Ovid, while revealing of male sexual megalomania, seems like a deliberate obfuscation of a possible closer source.

  Wagner’s original production of Parsifal at Bayreuth called for a chorus of thirty-one knights of the Holy Grail. By adding the characters of Gurnemanz and the Four Pages, and not counting the disgraced Amfortas and Titurel, this would bring the number of those initiated into the community to thirty-six.

  * There is no funeral march in Lohengrin—presumably it was the introduction to the third act of the opera, the melody of which can be played by a single bugler. N.S.

  TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

  PREMIERE: MUNICH, 1865.

  THE NAME

  This opera is usually just called Tristan, but people also speak of Tristan and Isolde, the two protagonists of the story. If you attempt it in German, besides saying und (pronounced “oont”), remember to use the back-of-the-throat German r sound in Tristan. The heroine’s name is pronounced “ih-ZOL-duh.”

  WHAT IS TRISTAN?

  In its barest form, the legend tells of the knight Tristan (or Tristram), who was the son (or stepson, or nephew, or other) of King Mark of Cornwall, and who was in love with Mark’s wife (or fiancée) Isolde (or Iseult). In most versions, Tristan and Isolde are caught making love, and subsequently die in one way or other.

  The legends behind this framework of a story are very old and diverge from each other frequently. The geographical places of Cornwall, Ireland, and Brittany recur in the several versions, telling us of a probable Celtic origin. The first written versions of the story came from France and Norway in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but the tale had long been popular among storytellers and balladeers and continued to be so long afterward.

  Europe in the Middle Ages was in many ways a more coherent unit than it is today, and popular tales made their way across the continent with amazing rapidity. People all over Europe sang and told stories of this love triangle, each time adding details or making changes to render the tale true for themselves. The interpretations ranged from the highly symbolic to the downright raunchy. In that way, Tristan and Isolde were more like symbols than actual people with biographical facts. The closest modern analogue of this phenomenon might well be the comic book hero, who maintains a few defining characteristics while performing an impossible number of deeds.

  Tristan and Isolde were the archetypes of illicit lovers, two people for whom love was a greater motivation than law, custom, or duty. Most versions of the story use the device of the love potion, but that is almost superfluous. Dante lists Tristan among the souls in hell who have been conquered by lust. The name is only mentioned, not explained, showing how well Dante’s audience knew this figure. The visual arts were no less committed to the story. Any museum that has medieval artifacts is sure to have at least one representation of it.

  A favorite image from the tale depicted in art is the graves of the two lovers, usually showing vines from each grave growing up and intertwining. This is a significant aspect. The intertwined vines symbolize a sort of grace conferred on the couple, an acknowledgment of a love too great even to be subject to the immutable laws of certain death and divine judgment. The lovers are not really responsible for their love. Is anybody?

  The issue is, at face value, love between a man and a woman, but most people in the audience might find their own memories or dreams of romantic love better resonated in, say, La bohème. Tristan and Isolde are no less archetypal in Wagner than they were in the medieval legends, and the real issue here is the terrifying, compelling nexus of love and death.

  It is well known, even among Americans who have little regard for foreign languages, that the French call an orgasm une petite mort, “a little death.” The overly amorous have always been seen as self-destructive and inclined to suicide. This has been true for Pyramus and Thisbe, for Dido, for Don Juan, for Romeo and Juliet, as well as for Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise and the doomed lovers who form the human aspect of Titanic. There are probably a thousand other well-known examples. In literary analysis it is called Eros/Thanatos, from Greek words referring to love and death. We say it in Greek because it is an important feature of Greek mythology, and so people don’t think we’re just talking about Woody Allen movies.

  Regarding Wagner’s other operas, this book has not concerned itself in any detail with the complicated, if fascinating, sources of their stories. Tristan, however, must be considered in a different way in this and other aspects. The basis of this story is the notion of a love so great that it transforms all existence, including death itself. To look at this subject, Wagner created a psychomusical vocabulary that still makes heads spin a century and a half later. People call the music of this opera “infinite melody.” It keeps propelling itself forward (like love), but has no definite starting or stopping points (such as birth and death). From literally the first bar of the score, Wagner reinvented the art of music.

  There has always been a mystique surrounding this opera. While people may jump up and down praising or deploring Wagner’s other works, they generally just get a glazed, ethereal look on their faces when Tristan is mentioned. This is partly due to the score, partly to the symbolism of the story, and partly to the history of the opera itself.

  Tristan’s libretto is perhaps as radical as the score. At the time of its premiere, it was bluntly denounced as bad poetry. Perhaps it is that, but at least it’s not conventional poetry. Short verse phrases of a word or two or three compose most of the vocal lines.
The characters often speak symbolically rather than in complete sentences, suggesting rather than telling. Tristan himself is particularly given to freakish modes of expression. Knowledge of German is only a partial help, while translations are, at best, approximations, and often equally nonsensical in English. Good luck to those who think they don’t need to read up a bit before the performance because modern opera houses provide simultaneous translations. They won’t get very far with this one! That’s the bad news. The good news is that we in the modern era should be quite accustomed to theatrical performances where symbol is valued more highly than cohesion. Many of today’s more avant-garde works for the theater and what we call performance art owe an unacknowledged debt to the libretto of Tristan.

  In terms of actual performance, the roles of Tristan and Isolde may well be considered the two most difficult in all opera. Merely surviving these roles guarantees the singer a place in musical history. The very few who have mastered the roles have become legends in their own right.

  In fact, this means that you are less likely to attend a live performance of Tristan at this point in history than any other Wagner opera, including the entire Ring. There are remarkably few people who can sing the title roles, but that’s only part of the problem. In the early part of the twentieth century, performances of Tristan were fairly common. Any jaded opera fan will tell you this is because there used to be real Wagnerian singers, and such creatures simply don’t exist any more. Whether or not this is true (and don’t ever argue the point with those people, nor do you need to mention that those Golden Age performances were invariably cut to shreds), modern audiences have been spoiled by recordings of this opera in a way that our predecessors were not. It’s true that the vocalism you are likely to hear in the house will probably not match that on one of the famous recordings of the 1950s or 1960s (some would push it back to the 1930s), and you will have to endure old-timers comparing today’s “paltry imitations” with the titans they claim to have heard forty years ago. That’s just part of the game. If you have the opportunity to attend a performance of Tristan, you do it. Period.

  Wagner, it cannot be stressed enough, wrote living theater. There is a direct, physical connection between a singer and a listener in a live performance, from the vibrations in the singer’s throat through the medium of air into your ears and, perhaps, gut, without the intercessions of any mechanism. Such a connection cannot be reproduced but only represented on a recording. It is a sexual as well as mystical connection, and that’s exactly what Tristan und Isolde is all about. Let the experts debate the singers until the end of time; there never has been, and there never will be, a perfect Tristan or a definitive Isolde. That’s no reason to miss out on the live experience of this masterpiece. You never tasted Escoffier’s cooking either, but that’s no reason to starve to death.

  Wagner follows an unusual format in unfolding the story. It is almost nonchronological (not in the sense of the action itself, which is chronological, but in unveiling the motivations). Most synopses begin with a paragraph explaining what happened before the opera starts. This synopsis attempts to unfold events as Wagner wanted them told in the opera house—it’s not always easy to follow, but will eventually become clear by the end.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  TRISTAN (tenor) A hero-knight of Cornwall (southwestern England). Tristan is an orphan, which is why he has the “sad” name, but is the nephew and favorite of King Marke. By the time we meet him, Tristan is melancholy and world-weary in the extreme.

  ISOLDE (soprano) Princess of Ireland, onetime fiancée of Morold, whom Tristan killed in combat. Isolde is skilled in magic arts, especially healing.

  BRANGÄNE (mezzo-soprano) Isolde’s maid, confidante, and mother figure. Her name is pronounced “Brawn-gay-nah.”

  KING MARKE (bass-baritone or bass) The king of Cornwall, and Tristan’s uncle. Marke has never married, since he wants to leave his kingdom to Tristan. But jealous knights persuade him to take a wife, and Tristan concurs with this to prove that he is not manipulating the king for his own benefit.

  KURVENAL (baritone) Tristan’s trusty buddy, a straightforward type of man utterly devoted to Tristan.

  MELOT (baritone) The bad guy. Melot is a knight of Cornwall, jealous of Tristan’s favor with the king. This is a thankless role even by Wagner-baritone standards, consisting of a grand total of fifteen lines.

  A YOUNG SAILOR (tenor) This is another case of a striking solo for tenor to raise the curtain, as in Dutchman. Once again, count on this worthy soloist to try to make an impression with his brief moment. The Young Sailor should sing offstage.

  A SHEPHERD (tenor) An odd role, consisting of poking his head over the wall periodically in Act III to ask Kurvenal how Tristan is doing. In theory, this is the guy playing the “shepherd’s pipe,” so he has to be offstage while the “pipe” is playing.

  THE OPERA

  Prelude

  Comment: The Prelude to Tristan is well known from the radio, concert hall, and several movie soundtracks. It is usually connected with a nonvocal arrangement of the Liebestod that ends the opera. In the theater, there are always some who are surprised not to hear the one after the other.

  The Prelude begins pianissimo in the highest reaches of the cellos. At the beginning of the second complete measure the oboes, supported by bassoons and English horn, join in to make a strange harmony. This is the celebrated Tristan chord, about which tomes have been written. Wagner fans nod in ecstatic comprehension at the mere mention of “The Chord.” It is Western music’s most noted example of “unresolved dissonance,” which is just a fancy way to say it sounds incomplete in some sense. It struck many of its original listeners as being as shocking as a bomb blast, and it still sounds strange today. (The notes are F, B, D#, and G#, if you want to know.) Musicologists name these four notes as the basis of all twentieth-century explorations of atonality (see Glossary). Dramatically, it depicts the self-perpetuating nature of desire, which is what we’ll be dealing with for the next few hours. The chord is eventually resolved, but not until the very last measure of the score. This, too, is part of the “story” of the opera.

  The Prelude continues to build throughout the orchestra, always propelled forward even after the climax (which is, as in the Prelude to Lohengrin, about two-thirds of the way through), like a love that continues after death. One reviewer called Karajan’s 1972 recording of this piece “the soundtrack to The Joy of Sex.”

  The Prelude was the first part of the score to be composed, and, while there are motifs in it that will be heard again in the opera, one shouldn’t expect depictions of subsequent events or characters in the music. It is a symphonic representation of the issues at stake.

  Act I

  Setting: A pavilion on the deck of Tristan’s ship, which is sailing from Ireland to Cornwall. Isolde is sitting on a couch, lost in thought. Brangäne is looking out at the sea through an opening in the draped walls.

  An unseen Young Sailor sings of his sweetheart, an Irish maid he has left behind. Isolde, roused out of her trance, asks who dares to mock her, hearing the sailor’s reference to an Irish maid as a dig at herself. Brangäne says the coast is in sight. They will reach Cornwall’s shore by night. Never! exclaims Isolde, who denounces herself as a degenerate member of her race, unworthy of her sorcerer mother. She cannot even summon the winds and the waves to smash this defiant ship, claiming the lives of all aboard as a prize. Brangäne tenderly tries to console her, asking Isolde what has been troubling her and what she has been hiding since they began the journey. Isolde only cries, “Air! My heart is choking! Open wide!” Brangäne parts the curtains forming the pavilion, and the rest of the ship’s deck appears as the Young Sailor sings his song again.

  Sailors perform their tasks, while Tristan, standing apart, stares out to sea. Kurvenal is relaxing at Tristan’s feet. Isolde glares at Tristan, muttering the strange words, “Chosen for me and lost to me … death-destined head! Death-destined heart!” She points to Tristan and asks Br
angäne what she thinks of “that lackey” over there, the one who does not dare to look at her. Brangäne is shocked. Surely Isolde cannot mean Tristan, the supreme and peerless hero. The timid one, says Isolde sarcastically, who flees the blow (of her words and glance) because he has won a corpse as bride for his master. Go, she tells Brangäne, ask him yourself why he avoids talking to Isolde, even looking at her! Only he knows why. Isolde commands Brangäne to order Tristan into her presence.

  Brangäne approaches Tristan at the helm. Kurvenal gets Tristan’s attention, telling him to be careful. Isolde’s envoy approaches. Tristan starts at the sound of the name Isolde, and Brangäne tells Tristan her lady wishes to see him. Tristan bids Brangäne tell Isolde that the long voyage will be over soon. Brangäne repeats the request. Tristan points to the shore, and says he will escort the radiant lady to his king when they land. Brangäne says Isolde commands his presence without further delays, but Tristan claims to serve the lady by remaining at the helm and delivering her and the ship safely to King Marke. Brangäne loses patience, telling Tristan to obey the lady’s command.