# Wagner in a vintage commercial



## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

Can anyone make a precise identification of the opera snippet in this old commercial for Milton Bradley's "Battleship" game?






Looks to me like Brunhilde and Wotan, but I could not find this precise snatch of music in their big duet (Die Walku"re, Act 3).

Thanks!


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

It sounds to me like Tristan und Isolde, the famous liebestod, although the final note seems to be obscured.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

It's neither Walküre nor Liebestod. It's in the middle of the second act of Tristan, at the very end of scene two:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Yeah it's the end of the Tristan love duet in Act 2, the famous "coitus interruptus".


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

JAS said:


> It sounds to me like Tristan und Isolde, the famous liebestod, although the final note seems to be obscured.


Yes,. It's from Tristan und Isolde. It's not the liebestod. I believe it's just at the end of the love duet after Isolde drank the potion and they are helpless, and now King Marke is upon them...explaining that final dissonant chord.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie has the correct answer. (I think hpowders does too, though the potion had been drunk some time earlier. In the garden the pair were quite sober and amiably discussing Schopenhauer.)


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

Thanks a lot, everyone - you guys are good! Yes, the end of the Tristan und Isolde Liebesnacht/Love Duet. But, if it's not too ridiculous a question, is the setting right in the Battleship commercial? Shouldn't the lovers be in a garden? Who are all those figures standing about? Did Tristan have an old man's beard? Does he need his shield for romancing Isolde? Did the commercial producers have a bit of a lark mixing up Wagner?

Anyhow, the 20 seconds or so of the Love Duet music in the Battleship commercial can be heard starting at 38:12 in this video, leading up to the chord signalling catastrophe:






And, for a quick comparison, the Milton Bradley commercial link again:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Donald Sauter said:


> Thanks a lot, everyone - you guys are good! Yes, the end of the Tristan und Isolde Liebesnacht/Love Duet. But, if it's not too ridiculous a question, is the setting right in the Battleship commercial? Shouldn't the lovers be in a garden? Who are all those figures standing about? Did Tristan have an old man's beard? Does he need his shield for romancing Isolde? Did the commercial producers have a bit of a lark mixing up Wagner?
> 
> Anyhow, the 20 seconds or so of the Love Duet music in the Battleship commercial can be heard starting at 38:12 in this video, leading up to the chord signalling catastrophe:
> 
> ...


It is Wagner so it is a Regie production set in the bronze age because that was when they had horned helmets.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Donald Sauter said:


> Thanks a lot, everyone - you guys are good! Yes, the end of the Tristan und Isolde Liebesnacht/Love Duet. But, if it's not too ridiculous a question, is the setting right in the Battleship commercial? Shouldn't the lovers be in a garden? Who are all those figures standing about? Did Tristan have an old man's beard? Does he need his shield for romancing Isolde? Did the commercial producers have a bit of a lark mixing up Wagner?
> 
> Anyhow, the 20 seconds or so of the Love Duet music in the Battleship commercial can be heard starting at 38:12 in this video, leading up to the chord signalling catastrophe:
> 
> ...


You do realize that the Milton Bradley marketing department doesn't give a damn about authenticity in Wagner production?

Come to think of it, neither does Bayreuth.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Donald Sauter said:


> Thanks a lot, everyone - you guys are good! Yes, the end of the Tristan und Isolde Liebesnacht/Love Duet. But, if it's not too ridiculous a question, is the setting right in the Battleship commercial? Shouldn't the lovers be in a garden? Who are all those figures standing about? Did Tristan have an old man's beard? Does he need his shield for romancing Isolde? Did the commercial producers have a bit of a lark mixing up Wagner?


I take as mostly the latter. No, the setting in the commercial isn't right for the music. The figures standing about are the biggest problem, I'd say. Basically the whole point was that Tristan and Isolde were alone. The shield and horned helmet were likely thrown in to invoke "Wagnerian opera" in cinematic shorthand, for those that don't recognize the music. It could have been worse.

What they did get right, though, was that in the opera the lovers are interrupted. In the opera, it's her husband, King Marke that is about to come in. In the commercial, it's the idiots playing the game they're trying to sell. Oh, David Olins. Unfortunately I can't find any evidence that he directed any other opera.

Part of me was hoping that they actually borrowed sets/costumes/etc. from the Götz Friedrich Ring that was contemporary with this commerical, but I can't find any images, etc. And, I mean, why would they do that.


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## Donald Sauter (Apr 29, 2017)

mountmccabe said:


> Part of me was hoping that they actually borrowed sets/costumes/etc. from the Götz Friedrich Ring that was contemporary with this commerical, but I can't find any images, etc. And, I mean, why would they do that.


Yes, that would have been fun. What I found is this extract from "An Invitation To the Opera" (John Louis DiGaetani) which would rule that idea out: "Equally famous was Friedrich's production of the entire Ring cycle for London's Royal Opera at Covent Garden. Setting the Ring in a science fiction never-never land and using only one basic symbol, a central piston to control a square platform that revolved or tilted for each of the scenes in the vast and complicated tetralogy..."

I get the impression that traditional Ring productions have been very rare since the mid-20th century:

http://www.the-wagnerian.com/2012/10/a-history-of-ring-cycle-productions-or.html


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