Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the
Dresden Opera in 1849, as there was a warrant for his arrest for his participation in the unsuccessful
May Revolution. He left his wife,
Minna, in Dresden, and fled to
Zurich. There, in 1852, he met the wealthy silk trader Otto Wesendonck. Wesendonck became a supporter of Wagner and bankrolled him for several years. Wesendonck's wife,
Mathilde, became enamoured of Wagner. Though Wagner was working on his epic
Der Ring des Nibelungen, he found himself intrigued by the legend of
Tristan and Isolde. The rediscovery of
medieval Germanic poetry, including
Gottfried von Strassburg's version of , the , and
Wolfram von Eschenbach's
Parzival, left a large impact on the German
Romantic movements of the mid-19th century. The story of Tristan and Isolde is a quintessential romance of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. Several versions of it exist, the earliest dating to the middle of the 12th century. Gottfried's version, part of the "courtly" branch of the legend, greatly influenced German literature. According to his
autobiography,
Mein Leben, Wagner decided to dramatise the Tristan legend after his friend Karl Ritter attempted to do so: He had, in fact, made a point of giving prominence to the lighter phases of the romance, whereas it was its all-pervading tragedy that impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details. This influence, together with his discovery of
Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a
Tristan und Isolde." Wagner wrote of his preoccupations with Schopenhauer and
Tristan in a 16 December 1854 letter to
Franz Liszt: Never in my life having enjoyed the true happiness of love I shall erect a memorial to this loveliest of all dreams in which, from the first to the last, love shall, for once, find utter repletion. I have devised in my mind a
Tristan und Isolde, the simplest, yet most full-blooded musical conception imaginable, and with the 'black flag' that waves at the end I shall cover myself over – to die. (1850) by
Karl Ferdinand Sohn By the end of 1854, Wagner had sketched out all three acts of the opera, based on Gottfried von Strassburg's version of the story. The earliest extant sketches are from December 1856, but only in August 1857 did Wagner begin devoting his attention entirely to the opera, putting
Siegfried aside to do so. On 20 August he began the prose sketch for the opera, and the
libretto (or
poem, as Wagner preferred to call it) was completed by 18 September. Wagner had moved into a cottage built in the grounds of Wesendonck's villa, where, during his work on
Tristan und Isolde, he became passionately involved with Mathilde Wesendonck. Whether this relationship was
platonic is uncertain. One evening in September that year, Wagner read the finished poem of
Tristan to an audience including Mathilde; his wife, Minna; and his future wife
Cosima von Bülow. By October 1857, Wagner had begun the composition sketch of the first act. In November, he set five of Mathilde's poems to music known today as the
Wesendonck Lieder. This was unusual for Wagner, who almost never set to music poetic texts other than his own. Wagner called two of the songs – "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume" – "Studies for
Tristan und Isolde": "Träume" uses a motif that forms the love duet in act 2 of
Tristan, while "Im Treibhaus" introduces a theme that later became the prelude to act 3. But Wagner resolved to write
Tristan only after he had secured a publishing deal with the Leipzig-based firm
Breitkopf & Härtel, in January 1858. From then on, Wagner finished each act and sent it off for engraving before he started on the next – a remarkable feat given the score's unprecedented length and complexity. In April 1858, Minna intercepted a note from Wagner to Mathilde and, despite Wagner's protests that she was giving it a "vulgar interpretation", accused first Wagner and then Mathilde of infidelity. After enduring much misery, Wagner persuaded Minna, who had a heart condition, to rest at a
spa while Otto Wesendonck took Mathilde to Italy. During the two women's absence, Wagner began the composition sketch of the second act of
Tristan. Minna's return in July 1858 did not clear the air, and on 17 August Wagner was forced to leave both Minna and Mathilde and move to
Venice. Wagner later called his last days in Zurich "a veritable Hell". Minna wrote to Mathilde before departing for Dresden: I must tell you with a bleeding heart that you have succeeded in separating my husband from me after nearly twenty-two years of marriage. May this noble deed contribute to your peace of mind, to your happiness. Wagner finished the second act of
Tristan during his eight-month exile in Venice, where he lived in the
Palazzo Giustinian. In March 1859, fearing
extradition to
Saxony, where he was still considered a fugitive, Wagner moved to
Lucerne, where he wrote the last act, completing it in August 1859.
Premiere Tristan und Isolde proved to be a difficult opera to stage, and Wagner considered various possibilities for the venue. In 1857 he was invited by a representative of
Pedro II,
Emperor of Brazil, to stage his operas in
Rio de Janeiro (in Italian, the language of the Imperial Opera); he told Liszt he was considering settling in Rio, and that that city would be given the honour of premiering
Tristan. Wagner sent the emperor bound copies of his earlier operas in expression of his interest, but nothing more came of the plan. His thoughts then turned to Paris, the centre of the operatic world in the middle of the 19th century. However, after a disastrous staging of
Tannhäuser at the
Paris Opéra, Wagner offered the work to the
Karlsruhe opera in 1861. , who conducted the premiere When Wagner visited the
Vienna Court Opera to rehearse possible singers for this production, the management at Vienna suggested staging the opera there. Originally, the tenor
Alois Ander was employed to sing the part of Tristan, but later proved incapable of learning the role. Parallel attempts to stage the opera in Dresden, Weimar and Prague failed. Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864,
Tristan und Isolde was unable to be staged in Vienna, winning the opera a reputation as unperformable. Only after
King Ludwig II of Bavaria became a sponsor of Wagner (granting him a generous stipend and supporting his artistic endeavours in other ways) could enough resources be found to mount the premiere of
Tristan und Isolde.
Hans von Bülow was chosen to conduct the production at the Nationaltheater in Munich, even though Wagner was having an affair with his wife,
Cosima von Bülow. The planned
premiere on 15 May 1865 had to be postponed until the Isolde,
Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, had recovered from
hoarseness. The work finally premiered on 10 June 1865, with Malvina's husband
Ludwig partnering her as Tristan. On 21 July 1865, having sung the role only four times, Ludwig died suddenly – prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. (The stress of performing
Tristan also claimed the lives of conductors
Felix Mottl in 1911 and
Joseph Keilberth in 1968. Both died after collapsing while conducting the second act.) Malvina sank into a deep depression after her husband's death and never sang again, although she lived for another 38 years. For some years thereafter, the roles' only performers were another husband–wife team,
Heinrich Vogl and
Therese Vogl. ==Performance history==