# First Act of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan And Isolde”



## Truvianni (Apr 21, 2011)

An article about the first act of Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan And Isolde”. 

Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan And Isolde” begins with a wonderful overture. This being the case with most operas yet it is in this particular opera in which Wagner makes special use of motifs which define every character. As for the story itself, it is basically that of the Celtic legend of “Tristan And Isolde” which in Wagner’s story begins on a ship that is transporting Isolde to King Marke of Cornwall. Naturally as can be expected Tristan is also on this ship as to protect the one he has won for his king. 

It however is as Isolde is traveling on this ship which she solemnly detests, as to wish it to sink that she tells Brangane of how it came to be that she was betrayed by Tristan; the one she loved who ended up giving her away to his king. This as if she were a prize to be done with as its victor willed. Isolde, recants the tale most of us know of Tristan, who first killed her beloved and then ended up in her care by some strange twist of fate and how it was that she nursed back to health the one who was so near death. It however being when Isolde found out that Tristan was the man who had killed the one she loved that she opted to take revenge in his name by killing the one she had saved from death. Isolde however being unable to perform her deed of revenge as when she found herself holding a sword ready to avenge her loved one, she was met with the most tender eyes of love which gazed not at the hands eager to do away with his life but in to her very being through her own eyes. Tristan’s gaze coming with such adoration that she could not do away with him even though his life had been in her power. It being then that Isolde goes in to rage, as if reliving the moment again as she ponders how they loved each other yet Tristan was now handing her over to his uncle which makes her feel like one who has been cheated and has played the fool. 

For me, personally this act is one of the greatest ever created as it captures through Isolde and its music the essence of this tragic love story. As one moment Isolde is as if falling in love again with Tristan in those fond tender memories yet only to return to the present which finds her on a ship taking her to another man than the one she truly desires. It is these precise changes in mood which Isolde explains that range from bitter hatred of all, specially Tristan to those moments when she and he were living in their own world of adoration for the other that Wagner’s music captures with so much passion. As this in fact is the suffering Isolde is under going as she explains all to her lady in waiting, Brangane; while Wagner makes full use of all the drama this moment offers to add so much life to this traditional tale in what the great maestro himself dubbed “total art”. It also being in the opera “Tristan And Isolde” that Wagner composes music which is capable of standing on its own and is for the most part considered the first of his great works. 

As a footnote, I will add that Wagner in fact starts half way through the story of Tristan And Isolde and uses Isolde as a kind of narrator to tell what has already been yet I wonder how long this already four hour opera would have been if he had shown the whole story?


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