English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original.

‘A Landmark in Musical History’ is John Luke Rose’s title for the introduction to this extraordinary piece of theatre. It belongs to the German tradition of mystical writing, and a short note on the poem itself by Martin Swales and Timothy McFarland elucidates some of Wagner’s literary techniques. Anthony Negus, who assisted Reginald Goodall on the WNO production of Tristan und Isolde, has contributed a penetrating analysis of the musical structure of the opera, while Patrick Carnegy assesses the remarkable solutions to staging an opera which some argue is best experienced with your back to the performers.

Contents: Synopsis, Timothy McFarland; ‘Tristan and Isolde’: A Landmark in Musical History, John Luke Rose; A Musical Commentary, Anthony Negus; The staging of ‘Tristan and Isolde’: Landmarks along the Appian Way, Patrick Carnegy; An Introduction to the German Text, Martin Swales and Timothy McFarland; Tristan und Isolde: Poem by Richard Wagner; Tristan and Isolde: English Translation by Andrew Porter