While he and his wife Minna were living in a cottage on the grounds of silk merchant Otto Wesendonck's Zurich villa, Wagner became romantically involved with his host's wife, Mathilde. Two of the five resultant Wesendonck Lieder — "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume" — are inscribed as "studies for Tristan und Isolde." One evening, the shameless Wagner read the finished poem to an audience that included not only Minna and Matilde but also his future mistress (and later wife) Cosima von Bülow!

Tristan (tenor Wolfgang Windgassen), nephew to King Marke of Cornwall (bass Martti Talvela), has been sent to fetch the Irish princess Isolde (soprano Birgit Nilsson) and bring her back as a wife for the King. Tristan and Isolde had met previously, when he killed her then-fiancé, and she had tended his wounds. Each fell in love with the other, but both kept silent, believing their feelings to be unrequited. Now, aboard the ship from Ireland, they resolve to end their separate sufferings by taking poison. Knowing of this, Isolde's faithful companion, Brangäne (mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig), substitutes a love potion, and the couple are overtaken by uncontrollable passion.

Once in Cornwall, the lovers can meet only under cover of darkness — where, betrayed by the knight Melot (baritone Claude Heater), they are soon discovered together by King Marke. Tristan is wounded by Melot and taken home to his own kingdom by his loyal squire, Kurwenal (baritone Eberhard Wächter). Isolde follows, arriving in time to join Tristan in a mutual embrace of death. Learning the truth about the love potion, Marke forgives the tragic young couple. Transfigured at last by death, Isolde is reunited with Tristan.

Karl Böhm conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Bayreuth Festival in this 1966 recording. From a 1962 Vienna Philharmonic concert, conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, Birgit Nilsson sings Isolde's ecstatic "Liebestod" (Love-Death):

On Wagner's actual birthday, Wednesday, May 22, WCPE will play orchestral selections from his operas throughout the day, and at 9:00 p.m. EDT we'll present Act III, scene 3 of Siegfried featuring Deborah Voigt and Plácido Domingo.

Please join me next Thursday evening, May 30, for Gaetano Donizetti's La Favorita, another ill-fated love affair involving a king. In this love triangle, Gabriel Bacquier is King Alfonso of Castille, Fiorena Cossotto is his mistress Leonora, and Luciano Pavarotti is the young monk-turned-warrior Fernando who is blissfully unaware of Leonora's true identity — until it's too late.

The WCPE Opera House is heard every Thursday evening at 7 o’clock in the Eastern time zone on 89.7 FM in central North Carolina, and we’re streamed online at http://www.theclassicalstation.org.

— W. Robert Chapman, Host of the WCPE Opera House