The emotions that love and death evoke lie in such extreme opposition to one another that in the most poetic of senses, they seem to merge, often with tragic results. No one seemed to understand this better than Richard Wagner, and nowhere did he more poetically express it in words and music than in Tristan und Isolde. Of course, this being opera, performance matters, and in this Bayreuth, 1957 edition of Tristan, offered in splendid sound from the mastertapes and with a stunning cast – Nilsson, Windgassen, Hotter, et. Al., led by Wolfgang Sawallisch, a pinnacle of sorts in performance is reached.
