The story of Tristan et Iseut – ‘a man, a woman’ – 

creatures of clay garbed in flesh by Beroul, Thomas, 

Gottfried and others, 

a story which unfolds ‘behind God’s back’ 

as the saying goes in the land of the Midnight Sun, 

at a time when the bow Failnaught shot only quarrels of fin’amor, 

that story was first astonishingly told and retold, 

in vain - you Doctors !- 

I t was the glory of Richard Wagner 

to have united in an eternel embrace

– with the help of the singer– 

the couplet and the song, the ivy and the vine, 

the draught and the cup.

As for the galaxy of Isoldes here observed, 

among whom one can sometimes discern 

‘the primeval noise of a world about to be born’, 

it will be remembered that, 

as far as Opera is concerned, 

the Twilight of the Goddesses finally proclaims 

- you, Choir-masters !- 

the Star of the Transfiguration.

 

 

IMA-Press Moscow 1994