Video: Bernstein Conducts 'Tristan und Isolde'

The footage above shows the final scene of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, performed by Ramon Vinay and Martha Modl, and conducted by a youthful Leonard Bernstein at Carnegie Hall. The date isn't given, but we believe it to be from the year 1952; anyone with a more precise date please let us know in the comments.

The November issue of History Today has a detailed article on Wagner's time as a political exile in Zurich, where his relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of a wealthy silk merchant, inspired an integral part of Tristan und Isolde. The author of the piece, Paul Doolan, sets the scene:

Wagner and his wife Minna lived in a house provided by [the merchant] next door to the Villa Wesendonck. Here he enjoyed the peace and quiet to compose Tristan und Isolde. Letters and short notes rifled back and forth between Wagner and Mathilde. In April 1858 this idyllic situation was shattered when his long-suffering wife intercepted one of his letters to Mathilde. Appalled by its intimacy she claimed (probably wrongly) that it bore witness to an illicit love affair and a scandal ensued.

You can read Doolan's full piece in the November issue of History Today, out October 20th. In the meantime, enjoy the Wagner.

From the archive

Wagner's influence on Hitler, and Hitler's on Wagner

Jayne Rosefield looks at the interaction between the composer and the dictator

Wagner and the Revanchards

Steven Huebner on the attempts to stage Richard Wagner's works in Paris between the 1870s and 1891.