Wagner: Tristan & Isolde

Choeur du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Jordan, Armin, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, soliści

BAC 014

Geneva is a Wagnerian city with an old tradition, and the composer withdrew into its walls when his influence on King Ludwig II became so costly for the Bavarian state that broad resistance formed in Munich against the monarch's close relationship with the highly brilliant, but in the pursuit of his artistic goals completely egomaniacal Wagner. The ground in Munich thus became hot, and the patrician metropolis in the French-speaking part of Switzerland was an ideal refuge. Reading Arthur Schopenhauer's "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" (The World as Will and Representation) laid the seed for Tristan und Isolde. Wagner was immediately under the spell of Schopenhauer's work, which he described as a "gift from heaven". Freshly drawn by "love as a terrible torment", this time to Mathilde Wesendonck, Schopenhauer's nihilism brought him deep comfort. He interrupted his work on the major work Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) in order to capture his artistic treatment of the great philosopher's ideas in the "musical action in three acts", which is about Eros, love and redemption through death. The French director Olivier Py, born in 1965 in the perfume city of Grasse, has given an inner tension to Richard Wagner's perhaps most personal dramatic creation with his production, which makes the work a red-hot experience without the fashionable antics that often spoil the enjoyment of great musical dramas today. An excellent cast and the inspired baton leadership of Armin Jordan further intensify the musical experience of this extraordinary production of the Geneva Grand Théâtre.

DVD x 1

Bel Air Classiques

23/06/2006

3760115300149