Transfigured Night

Tristan und Isolde is normally regarded as a classic love story. With its Schopenhauer-infused text, the two lovers’ desire for sexual union has traditionally been interpreted as a longing for death, their rejection of the phenomenal world inevitably leading them to a tragic but ultimately transcendental demise. This narrative is mirrored in music that perpetually delays functional resolution, instead sending the listener out on a sea of harmony which offers a tonal form for deferred satisfaction, and which reaches a conclusion only with Isolde’s famous final 'Liebestod'.In his new production for the Royal Opera House, Christof Loy sets out to complicate these ideas about the work. According to the director, the opera offers a more subtle examination of the relationship between love and death, in which various viewpoints are presented…