TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

Music drama in three acts (1865)

recommended for 17 years and older

Composer Richard Wagner. Libretto by the composer.
In German. With German and English surtitles. New Production.

Premiere at 29. June 2021

Munich Opera Festival Sunday, 04. July 2021, 05:00 pm – 10:00 pm , Nationaltheater.

Duration est. 5 hours

Munich Opera Festival

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Two hours before the start of the performance and, if applicable, during the intermissions, you can visit the exhibition SPHINX OPERA by Alexander Kluge at the Nationaltheater.
(A ticket for the respective performance is required!)

Further information on the exhibition

Conductor	Kirill Petrenko
Production	Krzysztof Warlikowski
Set Design	Małgorzata Szczęśniak
Lighting	Felice Ross
Video	Kamil Polak
Choreography	Claude Bardouil
Choruses	Stellario Fagone
Dramaturgy	Miron Hakenbeck Lukas Leipfinger

Tristan	Jonas Kaufmann
König Marke	Mika Kares
Isolde	Anja Harteros
Kurwenal	Wolfgang Koch
Melot	Sean Michael Plumb
Brangäne	Okka von der Damerau
Ein Hirte	Dean Power
Ein Steuermann	Christian Rieger
Ein junger Seemann	Manuel Günther

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper

The genre-typical conflict of a love triangle has never been compacted in an opera as elementarily and ultimately transcending as it is in Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Tristan and Isolde’s passionate love stands above all societal norms here. King Marke is betrayed as Isolde’s lawful husband by Isolde and Tristan, but Wagner’s music confirms and legitimises the adultery. Immediately in the first act, Tristan and Isolde’s shared death wish draws them to their plan to take their lives together. So what psychological source can this death wish be attributed to? Unknowingly the central characters drink a love potion instead of the expected poison. Do the now overflowing emotions truly spring directly from a supposedly magical love spell? The music also transcends all boundaries with Wagner exhausting the traditional tonality in chromatic sounds, and of course he subsequently heavily influenced modern compositional techniques right into the 20th century. The ambiguous harmony introduced in the Prelude, which repeatedly returns as a leitmotif throughout the plot, later became known as Wagner's famous “Tristan chord”.

Download Cast List (PDF)