Music and Visual Culture Wagner s Tristan Und Isolde in 1903 Vienna: Context Impact and Interpretation (Hardcover)

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 context. Together they show how the visual and musical elements of the staging interacted to express new artistic philosophies. Enriching our understanding of Wagner stage history and the cultural ferment emerging from fin-de-siècle Vienna this book will be of interest to researchers of music theatre and performance studies and art and cultural history.