Wagner 1: Tristan und Isolde. Love to Death....

華格納的樂劇總是在追求著一個他心目中完美女性的形象：

無私無我的犧牲、為愛而救贖男性的罪衍。在真實世界裡，在他不斷的如同《弄臣》的無良公爵一樣唱著“Questa e quella”（這個還是那個）周旋於女性之間時，這問題也深深的苦惱著他。

在他為數頗豐的著作裡，完全可以見到他對這裡想中女性的期盼與渴求。在這種對愛情無法滿足的情況下，華格納很自然地對《崔斯坦與伊索德》這種「愛到死」而且「死也無所謂」的愛情充滿了嚮往。

在1854年底寫給李斯特的信裡，華格納自我剖白了他對愛情的渴望：「我的一生裡從未品嚐過真正愛情的歡愉，我一定要為我夢想的至美樹立紀念碑，讓我的愛情獲得完全的滿足...在我心中，那就是計畫中的《崔斯坦與伊索德》...」。

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde, or Tristan and Isolda, or Tristran and Ysolt) is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to "Tristan und Isolde" not as an opera, but called it "Eine Handlung" (literally drama or plot), which was the equivalent of the term used by the Spanish playwright Calderón for his dramas.

Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired by his affair with Mathilde Wesendonck and the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Widely acknowledged as one of the peaks of the operatic repertory, Tristan was notable for Wagner's advanced use of chromaticism, tonality, orchestral colour and harmonic suspension.

The opera was profoundly influential among Western classical composers and provided inspiration to composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Karol Szymanowski, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. Many see Tristan as the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.^{[1] -- Wikipedia} 

he magic love-philtre is the excitant in this story of rapture and gloom. The Vorspiel therefore opens most fittingly with a motive which expresses the incipient effect of the potion upon Tristan and Isolde. It clearly can be divided into two parts, one descending, the other ascending chromatically. The potion overcomes the restraining influence of duty in two beings and leaves them at the mercy of their passions. The first part, with its descending chromatics, is pervaded by a certain trist mood, as if Tristan were still vaguely forewarned by his conscience of the impending tragedy. The second soars ecstatically upward. It is the woman yielding unquestioningly to the rapture of requited love. Therefore, while the phrase may be called the Motive of the Love-Potion, or, as Wolzogen calls it, of Yearning, it seems best to divide it into the Tristan and Isolde Motives (A and B).

The two motives having been twice repeated, there is a fermate. Then the Isolde Motive alone is heard, so that the attention of the hearer is fixed upon it. For in this tragedy, as in that of Eden, it is the woman who takes the first decisive step. After another fermate, the last two notes of the Isolde Motive are twice repeated, dying away to pianissime. Then a variation of the Isolde Motive leads

with an impassioned upward sweep into another version. Full of sensuous yearning, and distinct enough to form a new motive, the Motive of the Love Glance.

This occurs again and again in the course of the Vorspiel. Though readily recognized, it is sufficiently varied with each repetition never to allow the emotional excitement to subside. In fact, the Vorspiel gathers impetus as it proceeds, until, with an inversion of the Love Glance Motive, borne to a higher and higher level of exaltation by upward rushing runs, it reaches its climax in a paroxysm

of love, to die away with repetitions of the Tristan, the Isolde, and the Love Glance motives.

In the themes it employs this prelude tells, in music, the story of the love of Tristan and Isolde. We have the motives of the hero and heroine of the drama, and the Motive of the Love Glance. When as is the case in concerts, the finale of the work, "Isolde’s Love-Death," is linked to the Vorspiel, we are entrusted with the beginning and the end of the music-drama, forming an eloquent epitome of the tragic story. --- from Opera Synopsis