Bayreuth premiere casts of Tristan and Isolde

Tristan and Isolde
(Brangäne in the background)

The Bayreuth premiere casts of Tristan and Isolde list the participants in all new productions of Richard Wagner's musical drama Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival .

premiere

Tristan und Isolde , action in three acts by Richard Wagner , is the opera with the most complex history of world premieres in the opera world. The work was completed in August 1859, but only premiered on June 10, 1865 in Munich. A total of seven cities were planned as the location for the premiere: Rio de Janeiro, Karlsruhe, Paris, Vienna, Dresden, Weimar and finally Munich, where the premiere actually took place. In Vienna the project was finally canceled in 1863 after three years of effort, 77 rehearsals and multiple loss of voice of the designated Tristan actor. In the end, the work was deemed impossible to perform.

Only the financial and moral support of King Ludwig II of Bavaria made the actual performance of the opera possible, with Ludwig and Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld in the title roles and with Hans von Bülow at the podium, which immediately made a lasting impression on the audience and also in the present is one of the highlights of the opera repertoire. The work did not come to the Bayreuth Festival until 1886, staged by Cosima Wagner and conducted by Felix Mottl .

Regarding the table: The fifth column shows the total number of performances that the production achieved. The source note can be found in the sixth column.

Tristan and Isolde in Bayreuth

Tristan	Isolde	Brangäne	King brand Kurwenal Melot	A shepherd A helmsman Voice of a young sailor
July 25, 1886, production: Cosima Wagner , conductor: Felix Mottl , set design: Max Brückner , costumes: Joseph Flüggen (until 1906)
Heinrich Gudehus	Pink viewfinder	Gisela Staudigl	Gustav Siehr Carl Scheidemantel Adolf Grupp	Wilhelm Guggenbühler Oskar Schneider Jose Kellerer	24	[1]
1927, production: Siegfried Wagner , conductor: Karl Elmendorff , set design: Kurt Söhnlein , costumes: Daniela Thode , Irma Renheim , choir master: Hugo Rüdel (until 1931)
Gunnar Graarud	Emmy Kruger	Anny Helm	Alexander Kipnis Eduard Habich Fritz Wolff	Hans Beer Franz Meyer Caspar Koch	16	[2]
1938, production: Heinz Tietjen , conductor: Karl Elmendorff , stage design and costumes: Emil Preetorius (until 1939)
Max Lorenz	Frida Unfortunately	Margarete Klose	Josef von Manowarda Jaro Prohaska Fritz Wolff	Martin Kremer Edwin Heyer Martin Kremer	12	[3] [4]
1952, direction and set design: Wieland Wagner , conductor: Herbert von Karajan , costumes: Ingrid Jorissen , choir director: Wilhelm Pitz (until 1953)
Ramon Vinay	Martha Mödl	Ira Malaniuk	Ludwig Weber Hans Hotter Hermann Uhde	Gerhard Stolze Werner Faulhaber Gerhard Unger	10	[5]
1957, direction and set design: Wolfgang Wagner , conductor: Wolfgang Sawallisch , costumes: Kurt Palm , choir director: Wilhelm Pitz (until 1959)
Wolfgang Windgassen	Birgit Nilsson	Grace Hoffman	Arnold van Mill Gustav Neidlinger Fritz Uhl	Hermann Winkler Egmont Koch Walter Geisler	15th	[6]
1962, direction and set design: Wieland Wagner , conductor: Karl Böhm , costumes: Kurt Palm , choir director: Wilhelm Pitz (until 1970)
Wolfgang Windgassen	Birgit Nilsson	Kerstin Meyer	Josef Greindl Eberhard Waechter Niels Moeller	Gerhard Stolze Hans-Hanno Daum Georg Paskuda	23	[7]
1974, director: August Everding , conductor: Carlos Kleiber , set design: Josef Svoboda , costumes: Kurt Palm , choir director: Norbert Balatsch (until 1977)
Helge Brilioth	Catarina Ligendza	Yvonne Minton	Kurt Moll Donald McIntyre Heribert Steinbach	Heinz Zednik Heinz Feldhoff Heinz Zednik	23	[8th]
1981, director, stage, costumes: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle , conductor: Daniel Barenboim , choir director: Norbert Balatsch (until 1987)
René Kollo	Johanna Meier	Hanna Schwarz	Matti Salminen Hermann Becht Robert Schunk	Helmut Pampuch Martin Egel Robert Schunk	28	[9]
1993, director: Heiner Müller , conductor: Daniel Barenboim , set design: Erich Wonder , costumes: Yohji Yamamoto , choir director: Norbert Balatsch (until 1999)
Siegfried Jerusalem	Waltraud Meier	Uta Priew	John Tomlinson Falk Struckmann Poul Elming	Peter Maus Sándor Sólyom-Nagy Poul Elming	34	[10]
2005, director: Christoph Marthaler , conductor: Eiji Ōue , stage design and costumes: Anna Viebrock , dramaturgy: Malte Ubenauf , choir director: Eberhard Friedrich (until 2012)
Robert Dean Smith	Nina Stemme	Petra Lang	Kwangchul Youn Andreas Schmidt Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester	Arnold Bezuyen Martin Snell Clemens Bieber	35	[11]
June 10, 2015, production: Katharina Wagner , conductor: Christian Thielemann , stage design: Frank Philipp Schlößmann , Matthias Lippert , costumes: Thomas Kaiser , dramaturgy: Daniel Weber, lighting: Reinhard Traub , choir director: Eberhard Friedrich (until?)
Stephen Gould	Evelyn Herlitzius	Christa Mayer	Georg Zeppenfeld Iain Paterson Raimund Nolte	Tansel Akzeybek Kay Stiefermann Tansel Akzeybek	12	[12]

Web links

• Overview of the staging of the Bayreuth Festival (completely from 1951), accessed on October 29, 2016
• Wagner portal , cast for the world premiere, accessed on October 29, 2016
• Tamino Autographs , cast sheet for the performances from 1928, accessed on October 29, 2016

Individual evidence