Opera Summery from Metro Opera Family: Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde is an opera about Isolde’s desire for the love of the knight Tristan and the fate they both share because of their love. Tristan killed the fiancé of Isolde in battle, and was badly wounded in the process. Isolde aided Tristan back to health while knowing that Tristan was the man who slain her future husband. She soon fell in love with him. However, Tristan captured Isolde and takes her back as bride for his uncle. Isolde wants his love, but she is grieved that she cannot have it. She decides that killing herself and Tristan will make a love bond in the afterlife.
Tristan
(left), Isolde (right)
Herrmann “borrowed” a piece from the opera before, Liebestod, for the score of Vertigo, but, this time, the play’s album is in the mise-en-scene. In Vertigo, Herrmann incorporated this piece because of Madeleine’s romantic desire for death to fulfill a union. [11]