Opera Tickets Italy

Richard Wagner's epic opera Tristan und Isolde, a tale of love and tragedy, takes centre stage at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, in Florence. This staging, featuring the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra and Male Chorus alongside a distinguished cast of singers, provides a wonderful opportunity to witness one of Wagner's celebrated works performed by world-class artists at a first-class operatic venue. Tristan und Isolde was first performed on 10 June 1865 at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich, Bavaria in what is modern-day Germany.

Wagner based the opera on Gottfried von Strassburg's 13th-century verse romance, Tristan, itself part of the wider Tristan and Iseult tradition, writing both the libretto and the music for it. The work dates from the middle period of the composer's career, when he was developing his ideas about music and drama and moving away from conventional operatic forms. Although the work is classified as an opera today, Wagner described it as a Handlung. This term, roughly translating into English as 'action', reflected his desire to distinguish it from more conventional mid-nineteenth-century works, which tended to rely on distinct arias and duets separated by recitative sections. Instead, with Tristan und Isolde, Wagner set out to create a continuous musical drama in which the orchestra, voices and unfolding action were closely integrated, avoiding the then-standard approach of dividing operas into self-contained numbers.

The plot begins with a journey an Irish princess, Isolde, is making to Cornwall. She is being transported to King Marke as his recently betrothed wife-to-be. It is Tristan, the King's nephew, who has been charged with escorting her for this purpose. Isolde knows that her escort, Tristan, is the very man she nursed to recovery after a battle. Not only this, but she recognises him as the warrior who killed Morold, whom she had been intended to marry. As the story unfolds, we learn that Isolde is deeply torn by this revelation, experiencing extremes of emotion, as she reacts with anger, humiliation and grief as well as desire for Tristan. Isolde is understandably desperate given her sorry circumstances and plans to poison both herself and Tristan. However, events take a turn when her handmaiden, Brangäne, intervenes. Will Isolde end up marrying the King and what will become of her and Tristan's affection for one another if she does?

This production of Tristan and Isolde at Florence's Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino evokes the passions and doubts of the main characters in a staging brimming with emotional intensity and dramatic tension.