Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

However astonishing it may seem, quite a few critics considered Wolfgang Wagner’s production of Tristan und Isolde the highlight of the 1958 Bayreuth Festival season. This was despite the fact that the season had opened with a new production of Lohengrin in a sensational interpretation by the elder of the two Wagner grandsons and festival director, Wieland Wagner. Sawallisch, still only 33 at his Bayreuth debut in 1957, was then the youngest of the conductors, and Wolfgang Wagner had insisted on his appointment despite undisguised opposition to it. Almost every review struck such a lofty, rapturous tone—one that might sound a little overwrought today—and hailed the performance as a kind of musical miracle, thereby confirming in a curious way Nietzsche’s view that Tristan und Isolde was the true opus metaphysicum of all art, overwhelming in its simple grandeur, and precisely for that reason true to the mystery of which it speaks: being dead while still alive, being one in two. In the flawless cast of this outstanding audio document, alongside Wolfgang Windgassen, Grace Hoffmann and Josef Greindl, it is above all, of course, the name of the legendary Wagner diva Birgit Nilsson that stands out; she would have celebrated her 100th birthday this year.