Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in 1903 Vienna: Context, Impact, and Interpretation (Music and Visual Culture)

This volume uses the historic staging and legacy of the 1903 production of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, directed and conducted by Gustav Mahler, to explore a wide range of interdisciplinary issues in the history of the opera, performance, and the reception and interpretation of Wagner's work. The production marked a turning point in twentieth-century opera, as Mahler and the designer Alfred Roller broke with nineteenth-century naturalistic traditions and used new technologies to transform the aural and visual experience of opera.With chapters contributed by scholars from musicology, art history, theatre studies, and other disciplines, this book provides a uniquely multifaceted perspective on Wagner's opera in the historical setting of the early twentieth century.Chapters in the first part address specific aspects of the 1903 production, including staging, lighting, and performance practice, while the second part sets the production in wider political, artistic, and literary con