Wagner Without Fear

by William Berger

  Kurvenal intercedes for him. Tell the Lady Isolde, he says, that it’s Tristan’s duty, as the man who won her for the crown of Cornwall and the realm of England, to conduct her to his uncle the king, and not to attend on her. Tristan the hero is famed throughout the world! Kurvenal goes on to sing the story of Cornwall’s triumph at Ireland’s expense. Tristan tactfully tries to quell him, but Kurvenal sings, while the crew listens, of Lord Morold, Isolde’s onetime fiancé, who came to Cornwall demanding tribute, but Tristan killed him in single combat. Morold’s body lies buried on a floating island, but his head was sent back to Ireland as mock tribute. Tristan the hero sure knows how to pay tribute!

  Brangäne rushes back to Isolde, who has been watching this exchange and who seethes as the crew repeat Kurvenal’s offending song. Isolde, mastering her fury, asks Brangäne what Tristan said, but cuts her off, saying she heard every word herself. So Brangäne has heard about Isolde’s disgrace: let her now hear how it came about.

  Isolde could tell the sailors a different story from the one they were singing, about a small boat that drifted along Ireland’s coast with a dying man in it. She nursed him with her healing arts. He called himself “Tantris,” but she figured out he was the famous Tristan who slew her beloved Morold and sent her the head, himself wounded in the combat by Morold’s poisoned sword and then suffering from a festering wound. When “Tantris” lay recovering, thanks to her care, she noticed a notch missing out of his sword. It fit perfectly with a splinter that was embedded in Morold’s skull. She swore revenge, but as she lifted the sword to kill Tristan, his eyes met hers, and her resolve failed. Brangäne wonders how she didn’t recognize Tristan as the same “Tantris” she helped to nurse.

  Comment: Tristan calling himself “Tantris” so he could seek the healing of Isolde, who would crave his death as the murderer of her fiancé, was a goofy and possibly intentionally amusing gimmick of the medieval Tristan legends. Newman compares this with Winston Churchill sneaking into the Nazi cabinet by using the alias Chinston Wurchill. Wagner may well have been attracted to the sound of the name (he emphasizes this detail sufficiently) because it connects Tristan to the Tantra, the mystical writings of Hindu and Buddhist tradition. In his private correspondence at the time of this opera’s composition, Wagner frequently wrote of the beauty of Nirvana. He saw Tristan and Isolde as headed toward Nirvana, although only Wagner could have called it that. These lovers are not exactly achieving bliss by relinquishing desire!

  “Tantris” left Ireland in good health, continues Isolde, but Tristan returned to demand the Irish princess as a bride for his weak uncle Marke, Cornwall’s king. Would Ireland have suffered the insult of this vassal suing for Isolde if Morold had lived? And yet, Isolde realizes, it was she who brought this shame upon herself by failing to kill Tristan when she had the chance! Now she must serve him. Brangäne recalls only the happiness when peace was concluded between the two countries. Who knew then that there would be such grief? Isolde remembers how boastful Tristan was when he returned to Ireland—comparing this to how he had to be concealed the first time—and how he pointed to her and bragged what a treasure she was for his lord and uncle. The adventure was but a lark for him! She curses Tristan, and calls for vengeance, death—and death for both him and her!

  Comment: This famous episode, beginning when Isolde tells Brangäne to hear her side of the story, often shows up at recitals as “Isolde’s Narrative and Curse.” It is one of Wagner’s many great examples of an arching crescendo of emotion, depicting the character’s state becoming more and more frenzied the more they think about it. Clearly, although she does not say it in so many words, Isolde is in love with Tristan in a big way. This is why she didn’t kill him when she had him at her mercy in Ireland. The narrative climaxes in a state bordering on hysteria. When Isolde imagines Tristan’s carefree manner in fetching her for the king, the original German reads “Mir lacht das Abenteuer,” or “The adventure laughs at (for) me.” At the word “lacht,” she hits one of the two high B’s in this narrative. “Lacht” is also the word to which Wagner assigns Kundry’s unforgettable high B in Parsifal. Isolde, we should understand, does not like being laughed at. The other high B is at the word “preis,” referring to herself as Tristan’s “prize.” These two notes can be good indicators of what sort of an evening lies ahead.

  Brangäne calls this anger madness. What else could Isolde hope for? What better way for Tristan to repay his debt to her than by arranging a royal marriage? And what a king to wed, who has such noble knights as Tristan to serve him! Isolde gazes ahead wildly, saying she could not bear the torment of staying by that splendid man and remaining unloved. Brangäne asks where is the man who would not love and be consumed by Isolde? She confides that she would know how to keep any man attentive to Isolde. Does the princess not know of her mother’s arts of sorcery? Does she imagine her mother would have sent Isolde to a foreign land without any means of help? Isolde praises her mother’s wisdom and powers, crying again for vengeance and an end to her heart’s distress. Brangäne opens a small chest, containing different potions. She sorts through them—antidotes, balms—finally producing a flask she calls the noblest of all (it is the love potion). Isolde corrects her; she knows of a better one. She shows it to Brangäne, who recoils in terror. “The death potion!” Isolde cries.

  Kurvenal enters, urging the ladies, in his gruff and familiar manner, to get ready and look lively. More formally, he addresses Isolde, saying Tristan the hero bids the lady to prepare for landing, that he may escort her to the royal castle. Isolde masters her emotions, and replies grandly that Lord Tristan must come and attend her to seek her grace and make amends for an unatoned offense. Only then may he escort her properly. Isolde repeats the words pointedly to Kurvenal, making sure he gets the message and will deliver it to Tristan. Kurvenal goes to Tristan, and Isolde impulsively flings herself on Brangäne, crying farewell to her and the world and her mother and father.

  Brangäne does not understand. Isolde composes herself, telling Brangäne to prepare the potion of reconciliation. Isolde hands her a flask, but Brangäne concludes that it is the death potion. She begs for pity, but Isolde says it is she who should be pitied. Repeating Brangäne’s words mockingly, she says her mother would not have cast her away without some means of help. For sharpest pain, her mother gave her this, the death potion. Brangäne must obey her. Just then, Kurvenal announces Tristan, who enters. Brangäne and Kurvenal withdraw. Tristan and Isolde stare at each other in the most terrible silence.

  Comment: So there you have it—love and death in nearly identical bottles, with the concept of reconciliation floating about between them. This scene can get pretty confusing, with Isolde and Brangäne fussing around the medicine chest like two old ladies looking for the right cold remedy. Many directors nowadays follow Wieland Wagner’s lead and dispense with the dumb little props, presenting this as a debate about the relative powers of love and death.

  Tristan and Isolde engage in guarded repartee, she accusing him of disobeying her commands and avoiding her, he excusing himself on grounds of loyalty to King Marke. Isolde reminds him that a blood debt exists between them. Tristan insists that was settled at the peace negotiations, but Isolde claims she now speaks on behalf of her own person, not her nation. She must fulfill her oath—vengeance for Morold! Why did she not kill Tristan when she had the chance? Gloomily, he draws his sword, offering her his life. Isolde balks, saying King Marke would not appreciate her killing his favorite vassal. They must drink reconciliation instead. She motions to Brangäne to bring her the flask. Brangäne hesitates, but then complies.

  From outside, the ship’s crew is heard singing. They are close to landing. Tristan remains still. Isolde takes the prepared cup and approaches him, telling him how he could be absolved of all guilt by drinking. Tristan starts up wildly, grabbing the cup from Isolde and ranting incomprehensibly about his honor, loyalty, defiance, and heart dreams. “Everlasting mourning the sole consolation!” he exclaims, d
rinking the potion. Isolde seizes the cup from him and finishes off the contents, toasting Tristan as “traitor,” and thrusting the cup aside.

  Tristan and Isolde gaze at each other, waiting for some effect. Their agitation grows. Some miraculous change is occurring. Is it death? They murmur each other’s names—and fall into a passionate embrace. They have drunk the love potion! Trumpets are heard in the distance announcing King Marke.

  Comment: Talk about the magic of love! This powerful moment uses themes we have heard in the Prelude and other places to depict repressed desire as Tristan and Isolde gaze at each other. At the moment of an unforgettable “pluck” from the orchestra, they cast off inhibitions and land in each other’s arms. Later, it becomes clear that we are not to understand this as the effect of the love potion itself as much as a mutual decision to cast off appearances and proprieties, and admit the love that already exists between them. It is because they assume they are about to die that they are able to express the truth of their love. Death/night strips away the lies (as in social customs and laws) of life/day. For two singers to be able to project the proper nuances in this nonvocal moment is a major accomplishment.

  Brangäne enters, wringing her hands and wondering what will happen next. Tristan and Isolde slowly emerge from their embrace, he wondering if he had been dreaming about honor and she about shame. Could they each have thought for a moment the other did not love them? Together they sing of their rapture. They are lost to the world, but won for each other. Brangäne beckons the ladies from below deck to come up and help prepare Isolde, while the sailors hail King Marke. Kurvenal enters the pavilion and tells the two that the king is approaching. Neither Tristan nor Isolde can follow what is happening. She asks Brangäne, and the unhappy servant confesses she gave the love potion. Tristan and Isolde exclaim each other’s names in horror, realizing they must live. The king’s retinue boards the ship.

  Comment: Brangäne’s entrance sometimes gets a howl out of the audience, since the mezzo often puts her hands to her cheeks at the sight of the lovers’ embrace and does everything but shriek “Oy, vey!” This leads many to leave the theater believing, incorrectly, that Brangäne had switched the potions by accident rather than by design. When Kurvenal enters, there is much scurrying on stage and in the orchestra, as the horns blare out thrilling fanfares to announce the king. These are in sharp contrast to the intensely interior music we had been hearing. It is the real world crashing in on the dream world of the lovers, something we will see again in a more developed form in Act II.

  Act II

  Setting: After a prelude, the curtain rises on a garden of King Marke’s castle. Night. Isolde is anxiously waiting for Tristan to come to her. Horns of the royal hunting party are heard in the distance.

  Isolde asks Brangäne if she can still hear the horns. Brangäne assures her the hunters are still near, but Isolde does not believe her. She hears the wind in the trees and the waves of the stream, but cannot hear the horns. Why does Brangäne insist the hunters are still near? Does she want Isolde to suffer more in anticipation? Brangäne senses Isolde’s mad anxiety, and warns her to keep her head. Caution must be observed. Tristan has an enemy at court—the knight Melot. She saw how he looked at Tristan when they arrived from Ireland. Melot hastily arranged this night hunt to trap not beasts, but Tristan with Isolde, so he could denounce them to the king. Isolde thinks Melot planned the hunt out of love for Tristan, to give him time to be alone with her. Why is Brangäne delaying giving the signal? Why does she not extinguish her torch, the last light of the evening, so the darkness of night will be complete and Tristan will know to come?

  Brangäne pleads to leave the torch burning; let it show Isolde what dangers are present. Isolde will not heed her. Brangäne curses herself for substituting the potions, but Isolde assures her they are all pawns of a greater mistress, the Queen of Love. All are subject to Her; even Death, whom Isolde had vainly sought to control until Love took over the matter. Isolde must display her obedience to the Love Spirit, whatever She may command. Brangäne asks one thing only, that the torch be left burning. Isolde sends Brangäne to keep watch on the tower, and grasps the torch. The light prevents night, so let it perish, though the light were her own life! She throws the torch to the ground, where it slowly dies. Brangäne ascends the tower as Isolde sees Tristan approach.

  Comment: The torch business (representing light/safety/reality) is effective in the theater, but don’t expect to see an actual torch, modern fire laws being what they are.

  Tristan and Isolde embrace madly, wildly addressing each other’s hands, eyes, hearts. They praise the night, where their love lives, and denounce the day, which separates them. They compare who suffers most from daylight. Tristan blames day for making him obey honor and loyalty, while Isolde counters that daylight made her beloved look like a traitor whom she should hate. He tells her he recognized sweet death in the cup she offered him, which would end day and open his breast to the power of night. They praise the love potion, which did not cause their love but merely dispelled the illusions of daylight and consecrated them both to night. Yet spiteful day still has the power to separate them, though they no longer believe its illusions.

  Comment: Scholars and “serious” Wagnerians twitch if you call this and the subsequent sections the “love duet.” Indeed, it doesn’t seem like the right thing to call this massive event which, except for Brangäne’s torch business at the beginning and Marke’s long address at the end, basically forms the entire Act II. Some call it the Liebesnacht, or “Night of Love,” but that sometimes refers only to the next, more subdued phase of the scene. If we can’t call it a love duet, what can we call it?

  The problem is that it’s not exactly a duet, nor is it really love as we usually understand it. The first part of this scene, when the two lovers meet and embrace, is famously intense and, in a word, loud. This part contains Isolde’s two high C’s that come out of nowhere, and either get lost in the shuffle or can kill a bowl of goldfish, while the tenor is right there with her in terms of sheer hysteria. Many first-timers get the feeling that this is not romance but rather a battle to the death, and, in a sense, they are not wrong. Tristan is something of a superman and Isolde is certainly meant to be understood as a superwoman, and their coming together is the encounter of powerful attractive and antagonistic charges. It is like thunder. The two are pushing each other toward death. Later, this will be handled more in the manner of a seduction. In this first part, it is a challenge.

  So much for love, but what about “duet”? Certainly this scene differs from most love duets in opera. Generally, love duets express sentiments along the lines of “You are so beautiful and I love you!” Those sentiments are remarkably absent here, where the lovers engage in a sort of extremely passionate philosophical debate. Also, most love duets begin tenderly and build to a climax, whereas this one starts full throttle and settles into a sort of quiet bliss. Yet this is more of a duet than Wagner usually wrote, simply by virtue of the fact that the lovers actually do sing together at various points here. Up until this point in his career, Wagner was careful not to let this happen (cf. Die Walküre, where Siegmund and Sieglinde hand off the vocal line to each other like a hot potato). Wagner’s theory was that people don’t talk at the same time, and therefore shouldn’t sing at the same time.

  Some of the credit for relaxing this dogma in Tristan may go to the composer Rossini, of all people. Legend has it that Wagner called on the genial old man at his country home in France, partially to pay respects after the journalists wrote lies about Wagner badmouthing the popular, retired Rossini. While Wagner was expounding his theory, Rossini interrupted him to mention that the point, really, was moot, since people don’t sing at each other in the first place! Wagner thought it over and realized that realism was not his goal for Tristan und Isolde, and a bit of artistic license was acceptable. One hopes this story is true. (See Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini in Part Three, “Wagner in Print.”)

  Tristan a
nd Isolde ask the Night of Love to descend on them, that they may live released from the world. World-redeeming night extinguishes the last glimmers of their former thoughts and beliefs, memories and fears. They each declare they are the world in themselves, floating in sublime ecstasy. Their only wish now is never to waken. Brangäne is heard from the tower: Let the lovers beware, night is ending.

  Comment: Brangäne’s call of warning is, for many, the greatest masterstroke of the whole opera. It floats majestically (one hopes) over the lovers and the theater. Brangäne is a sort of intermediary between the two worlds (for example, she’s up in the tower—get it?). The song of the watchman, a friend or well-wisher who guards the lovers and warns of the coming dawn, was a conventional form of the Middle Ages. This form, known as aubade in Provence and alba in Italy (“morning song”), is based on sadness as the night ends and the lovers part. Brangäne’s call, and the very short one after the next section, inherit this tradition.

  The beautiful Liebesnacht, or “Night of Love,” section of this scene relies on exceptional sweetness. The orchestra shimmers with muted strings, while the lovers’ singing is more like sighing than the blaring of the first section. Don’t berate yourself if you fall asleep in this part. It isn’t boredom, it’s a reverse shock to your body, like lying down directly after a thirty-minute aerobic workout. You are being seduced into the dream world, as the lovers are. They will build up again in pace and volume before their love scene concludes.

  They wonder if death can reach their love. Tristan doubts it, while Isolde notes that their love no longer resides in Tristan nor in Isolde but in the little word “and” that connects them. If that little word were destroyed, then they would die together, endlessly, namelessly, without fearing, living on only as love. The voice of Brangäne repeats “Beware! Beware!” from the tower. Daytime approaches. The lovers’ rapture builds in waves as they welcome the unending night of death, where they can be united in a new consciousness, the self-knowing highest joy of love!