Wagner on Tristan

On a Tristan und Isolde kick because of a writing assignment. It’s an opera I don’t think I got until I turned 50 (and saw the Met’s weird but gorgeously sung  production.)

One of Wagner’s many inamoratas, Mathilde Wesendonck, helped inspire the opera, and he wrote thus to her: “… I have never written anything like it before–you will indeed marvel when you hear it.”  “To me Tristan remains a wonder! I….I shall be eternally grateful to you for the fact that I have written Tristan. ”