Tristan and Isolde

Susanna Mälkki 

Susanna Mälkki has been Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra since 2016. Her leadership has guided the orchestra and audiences the world over, through different musical territories and thematic seasons. Mälkki ends her highly-acclaimed tenure as the HPO’s Chief Conductor with a focus on Finland and Finnish music, as the orchestra is celebrating its 140th anniversary. 

One of the most celebrated conductors of her generation, Mälkki regularly works with the world’s most illustrious orchestras – the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic and the other “Big Five” US orchestras, to mention just some. 

Mälkki has also been regularly engaged by many of the world’s most renowned opera houses, such as La Scala, Milan, the New York Metropolitan, the Vienna State Opera and the Opéra national de Paris. During the 22/23 season she will conduct the opera Innocence by Kaija Saariaho at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London and Puccini’s Il Trittico at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. 

From 2006 to 2013 Mälkki was Artistic Director of the Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris on the invitation of Pierre Boulez, and she has conducted the world premieres of works by many of the leading contemporary composers. During her term, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra has won a reputation for its unusually rich and varied programming, including many notable first performances, joint international commissions and award-winning recordings. Premieres conducted by Mälkki have included Kaija Saariaho’s Vista, which is dedicated to her, Felipe Lara’s Double Concerto and Enno Poppe’s FETT. Special projects have been launched, such as series of commissions called The Helsinki Variations celebrating 100 years of Finnish independence and HUOM – History’s Unheard Orchestral Music, in collaboration with historians and musicologists.  

Susanna Mälkki began her career as a cellist; she was the winner of the Turku Cello Competition in Finland in 1994 and spent three years as co-principal cellist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Her many distinctions have included the Pro Finlandia Medal – one of Finland’s highest honours – and she is a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in France. 

www.susannamalkki.com  

Stuart Skelton, Tristan

Australian Stuart Skelton is one of the most talked-about heroic tenors in the world today. A celebrated Wagner specialist, he has above all won acclaim for his Tristan, which he first sang at the Baden-Baden Music Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle followed by English National Opera and the New York Metropolitan. In speaking of Wagner he says, “It’s the meat of my career. I’m happy to flex my Wagnerian muscles and show it’s not all loud and stentorian.” He has also sung in concert versions of Tristan at venues such as Verbier, and in 2014 was International Opera Awards’ Male Singer of the Year.

Lise Lindstrom, Isolde

American soprano Lise Lindstrom is best known for her demanding roles in operas by Puccini (Turandot), Richard Strauss (Salome and Elektra) and Wagner (Brünnhilde). In 2016, she received two of Australia’s most prestigious theatre awards for her Ring debut at Opera Australia. The part of Isolde had long been on her wish list, and two years ago, she was able to add it to her repertoire on being invited to sing in a concert performance of the opera in Tokyo, but this had to be cancelled. She thus makes her debut in Wagner’s possibly most iconic role tonight – with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jenny Carlstedt, Brangäne

Born in the island province of Åland, Jenny Carlstedt was totally sold on opera on hearing a recording by Anne-Sofie von Otter. After studying at the Sibelius Academy and Guildhall in London, she spent 15 years as a member of the ensemble of Oper Frankfurt, and she has been the soloist at, among others, Glyndebourne, the Hamburg State Opera and the Danish Royal Opera. She can be heard this autumn at the Finnish National Opera, as The Waitress in the opera Innocence by Kaija Saariaho, and next spring makes her Covent Garden debut in the same role with Susanna Mälkki conducting.

Markus Nieminen, Kurwenal

Finnish baritone Markus Nieminen quickly made a name for himself at around the turn of the millennium. He was a member of the solo ensemble of the Vienna State Opera 2001–2005, where his roles included Melot in Tristan. He also sang this part on the DG disc of the opera made in 2003. Over the years he has made many guest appearances, at the Finnish National Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden and the Vienna Volksoper, under conductors including Gerd Albrecht, Philippe Jordan, Fabio Luisi and Seiji Ozawa.

Brindley Sherrat, King Marke

English bass Brindley Sherratt was 36 before he began taking on solo work. By that time he had, however, been singing in the BBC Choir for 15 years. “Someone said I had an operatic voice and to have a go at it. I thought I had to get out of the choral world, or I never would”, he said. When he started out on this journey, “It felt like I was launching myself into the abyss. I just got lucky – with some talent of course.” For the first few years he stuck to more lyrical repertoire (Sparafucile, Montano) before getting deeply immersed in the heavy German bass roles such as Wagner’s Gurnemanz and Hagen, and Richard Strauss’s Baron Ochs.

Roland Liiv, Melot

Estonian tenor Roland Liiv is familiar to many here in Finland, having sung in a number of productions at the Finnish National Opera. This season he can be heard there in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In 2004, he was awarded the prestigious music prize of the Estonian Theatre Society for his performances in Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz and Benjamin Britten’s The Little Sweep. Roland Liiv has also appeared at venues in his native Estonia and Baugé in France.

Richard Strauss: Metamorphoses

In winter 1945, the Vienna State Opera, one of the jewels in the crown of German art and culture, was destroyed by bombs. “The most terrible period of human history is at an end,” wrote Richard Strauss (1864–1949) in his diary shortly before Hitler committed suicide. “The twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed by a criminal soldiery.” The following day he decided to compile various sketches he had made in a single work he called Metamorphoses. He borrowed the title from the work of the same name by Goethe published in 1790. In Strauss’s work the metamorphoses refer not to the themes but to extra-musical change: the rebirth that may follow destruction and death. Writing it gave Strauss a new lease of life, an “artistic Indian summer” that produced the Four Last Songs and other great works. Listeners may detect allusions to the Eroica and fifth symphonies by Beethoven, Mozart’s Jupiter symphony, and Bach’s G-minor fugue for violin.

Richard Wagner: Tristan and Isolde, Act II

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) has gone down in history as the composer of monolithic operas. The premiere of his four-hour Tristan and Isolde in 1865 was the biggest musical event of the decade. Though it is nowadays hailed as a true masterpiece and ground-breaker, many present on that day did not know what to make of it. Clara Schumann called it “the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life”; Hector Berlioz described it as a “chromatic moan”, and after seeing it in Bayreuth, Mark Twain commented, “I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the one sane person in the community of the mad.” The opera nevertheless affords a new perspective on the concept of genius and madness.

The libretto, also by Wagner, is based on a medieval Celtic legend of forbidden love. Isolde and her maid Brangäne are sailing with Tristan, a knight, and his servant Kurwenal to Cornwall, where Isolde is to marry King Mark. On the way, Tristan and Isolde drink a love potion and fall desperately in love. This, of course, is most unfitting, for Isolde is Mark’s trophy and Tristan is his nephew.

Act II takes place on dry land in Mark’s royal castle. While the King and his men are out hunting, Isolde awaits Tristan for a secret tryst. He duly arrives and they sing to the night, to love and the death that may ultimately unite them. Brangäne tries to warn them that the men are returning, but Isolde takes no notice and they are discovered. Tristan guesses what awaits him and asks Isolde to join him in the kingdom of darkness. She agrees. A courtier, Melot, wounds Tristan with his sword and he dies a slow death in Kurwenal’s arms.

Act II is the opera’s dramatic and musical centre, and it was so new and shocking that its listeners were irrevocably shaken. At no point is the tension eased, it seems; the harmonies are always going somewhere, with hardly ever a breather. Instead of individual numbers, the music unfolds before the listener in a restless stream of chords.

The “Tristan chord” for which the opera is renowned – a chord that is only semi-resolved – was already introduced in the opera’s Prelude. It keeps recurring throughout the opera and is possibly the most analysed and most disputed two bars in the entire history of music. It epitomises the idea of unresolved tension that is an integral element of the Tristan and Isolde story. It will not be resolved until their love has been consummated in a kiss and finally death, but that is still far away from the end of Act II.