Isolde's Liebestod

Tristan and Isolde (1912), by John Duncan

"As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head 'Tristan and Isolde,' the simplest, but most full-blooded musical conception. With the black flag which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die."

~ Richard Wagner in a Letter to Liszt

Herbert von Karajan conducts the prelude of Tristan und Isolde.




Karajan rehearses a performance of Richard Wagner's Isoldes Liebestod ("The Love-Death of Isolde") with Jessye Norman, followed by the actual concert.




Bernstein conducts the finale of Tristan und Isolde.




(Isolde, aware of nothing round about her, fixes her gaze with mounting ecstasy upon Tristan's body.)

Isolde's Aria

How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him,
in bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling,
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath -
to drown,
to founder -
unconscious -
utmost rapture!

(Isolde sinks gently, as if transfigured, in Brangaene's arms, on to Tristan's body. Those standing around are awed and deeply moved. Mark blesses the bodies. - The curtain falls slowly.)

*Translations of libretto via.


Jessye Norman performing "Mild und leise wie er lächelt" (Isoldes Liebestod), with Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. (C) 2005 DOR Films




Isolde's Liebestod (The Love-Death of Isolde)




Pas de deux from the ballet "Tristan and Isolde," staged by choreographer Krzysztof Pastor to the music of Richard Wagner, performed by Svetlana Zakharova and Andrei Merkuriev.

I had the pleasure of seeing this performance in person on the "Homage to Nureyev" gala evening at the London Coliseum on 21/March/2010. One online review reads, "Zakharova was fluid, willowy, with great extensions and… well, she just reminded me of a naiad in a painting by Waterhouse." I cannot agree more. I feel that Svetlana, as one of the best ballerinas of our time, is still getting better and better. In the gala performance of Tristan and Isolde, she was like water, like prana, like 'chi,' she was one with her dance and her dance was an extension of her.




All about Wagner's Tristan und Isolde:

Bilingual side-by-side German English Libretto (also in Italian)
Wagner Operas. A comprehensive website featuring photographs of productions, recordings, librettos, and sound files.
Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde. A gallery of historic postcards with motifs from Richard Wagner's operas.
Recordings of Tristan and Isolde rated. Recordings reviewed by Geoffrey Riggs.
Discography of Tristan und Isolde. List of recordings and videos from 1901–2004 by Jonathan Brown.
Wagner's Tristan and Isolde BBC / Metropolitan Opera synopsis
Tristan und Isolde resource site Comprehensive website containing source material and musical motives
Tristan und Isolde Performance Watch the opera free of charge
Seattle Opera Performance Seattle Opera link
Tristan und Isolde on Wikipedia

Tristan and Yseult (1887), by Jean Delville

Mikio Watanabe

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final

 

～Rainer Maria Rilke

 

By Mikio Watanabe:

A toi qui vois le ciel IV
Quietude
Eminence
Radieuse III
Radieuse IV
Radieuse V
Radieuse IX
Presage
Le point du jour II
Silence
Nostalgia - Beautiful Woman

Nostalgia - Beautiful Woman (detail)

Mikio Watanabe, Peony, mezzotint

Quiescence of Light and Solitude: Vilhelm Hammershøi

I remember watching Gabriel Axel's 1987 film Babette's Feast (Babettes gæstebud) when I was a child and being completely enchanted by its andante tempo, the sense of spirituality that comes from a certain respect for/ faithfulness to puritanical aesthetics, its quietness, its poetry, and of course, the gorgeousness of Babette's magnificent feast. Babette's Feast remains one of the films I love the most, and as I discovered Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi's works last night, I was reminded of this unique sense of beauty.

Hammershøi's paintings of women dressed in plain, dark clothes with their porcelaneous napes facing the viewer, create a curious emotion of vulnerability mixed with mysteriousness. Whilst his paintings of interiors with simple furniture (which he painted of his house at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen) focus your attention on how stunning the light is — its movement, its stillness, its subtlety, and its quiet elegance. The enigmatic silence, the grey palette, and tender simplicity in these paintings seem to be calling to us, inviting us to hear their stories. For me, Hammershøi's art is exquisite, alluring, and elegantly arouses the viewer's desire of stepping inside his seemingly austere world — one that is filled with beautiful intrigue.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Hvile, also called Rest (detail), 1905, oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Young Woman from Behind (1903-1904), Randers Kunstmuseum.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Woman at Piano, Strandgade 30, 1901 (oil on canvas, 55.9 x 45.1 cm). Private collection.

Many of his paintings show empty rooms or often include the profile, or view from the back, of his wife in a long dark dress. These interior paintings always show rooms inside his own home and due to their popularity Hammershøi's other subjects have been slightly overshadowed. He has painted sublime landscapes and architectural pictures that emit a lonely, derserted and empty feeling. There are definite elements of modernism in his work from the use of a muted palette and his frequent use of exagerated light to the creation of similar yet subtly different paintings. Yet it is the interiors that remain the most popular due to the way they emit a solitary atmosphere devoid of life but still providing a real emphasis on a feeling of space.

{Source: hammershoi.co.uk}

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior, 1899.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Bedroom, 1890.

Hammershoi was seen in his own time as an artist who it could be said looked backwards and seemed old fashioned due to his tonal paintings. This is particularly so if comparison is made to striking colourful modernist artists of Hammershoi's time such as Henri Matisse (1869-1954). In fact Hammershoi is somewhat of an enigma to place and perhaps that is where his popularity stems from. From being anti-modernist in his own time, he reaches out to our very modern world even if he can't quite be placed as symbolist, existentialist or modernist.

{Source: hammershoi.co.uk}

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Sunbeams or Sunshine. Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams, 1900 (oil on canvas, 70 x 59 cm). Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen.

 

Vilhelm Hammershøi, White Doors, 1905.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior, Strandgade 30.

Hammershøi's most compelling works are his quiet, haunting interiors, their emptiness disturbed only occasionally by the presence of a solitary, graceful figure, often the artist's wife. Painted within a small tonal range of implied greys, these sparsely-furnished rooms exude an almost hypnotic quietude and sense of melancholic introspection. In addition to the interiors, the exhibition also includes Hammershøi’s arresting portraits, landscapes and his evocative city views, notably the deserted streets of London on a misty winter morning. The magical quietness of Hammershøi’s work can be seen in the context of international Symbolist movements of the turn of the last century but the containment and originality of his art makes it unique.

{Source: Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, Vilhelm Hammershøi: Poetry of Silence.}

Vilhelm Hammershøi, En ung brystsyg pige (1888) 

Fynen Art Museum, Odense

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Seated Female Nude

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Portrait d'une jeune fille (Anna)

*See more of his artworks and read more about him:

Vilhelm Hammershøi entry in Denmark's artist database
Vilhelm Hammershøi at the Royal Academy: the poetry of silence (gallery) @ The Guardian
Vilhelm Hammershøi 2008 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art
Vilhelm Hammershøi gallery at Art in the Picture
Vilhelm Hammershøi biography and image galleries at Hammershoi.co.uk
Vilhelm Hammershøi on Wikipedia 


A few sequences from Babette's Feast...

徽宗之書: 美, 寂, 詩 Song Huizong

The refined elegance and subtle beauty of Song dynasty "artist emperor" Huizong's calligraphy, Slender Gold (also known as the Crane Font; 瘦金書, 雅稱鶴體), emanates a soft hue of loneliness, a sense of time past, which I have always been deeply attracted to and in love with. It is exquisitely scented nostalgia, melodious and poetic memories. It is Rilke's poetry of all my heart. It is Rosa Ponselle's sorrowful voice lamenting lost love in her haunting rendition of Massenet's Élégie.

Huizong's Slender Gold also has a special place in my heart because it dearly reminds me of my grandfather's calligraphy (in particular his 小楷 — small script) and handwriting. My grandfather used to fill the margins of his books with thoughtful notes and endless, beautiful words.

Emperor Huizong of Song (Poem and Calligraphy)

宋徽宗 瘦金書

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough

to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

～Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

Rosa Ponselle (1897~1981) singing Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet's Élégie / Elegy for Victor, in 1926.



Ô, doux printemps d'autre fois, vertes saisons,
Vous avez fui pour toujours!
Je ne vois plus le ciel bleu;
Je n'entends plus les chants joyeux des oiseaux!
En emportant mon bonheur...
Ô bien-amé, tu t'en es allé!
Et c'est en vain que revient le printemps!
Oui, sans retour,
avec toi, le gai soleil,
Les jours riants sont partis!
Comme en mon coeur tout est sombre et glacé!
Tout est flétri
pour toujours!

Emperor Huizong of Song, Cranes 1112

O sweet springtimes of old verdant seasons
You have fled forever
I no longer see the blue sky
I no longer hear the bird's joyful singing
And, taking my happiness with you
You have gone on your way my love!
In vain Spring returns
Yes, never comes back
The bright sun has gone with you
The days of happiness have fled
How gloomy and cold is my heart
All is withered
Forever

Emperor Huizong of Song, Classic Thousand-character Grass (Cursive) Script

墨荷: Zhang Daqian's Lotuses

Nothing lasts forever in this world,

Where one season changes into another.

— The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu

張大千 墨荷 (ink and wash painting by Zhang Daqian)

«潯陽三題：東林寺白蓮»  唐 白居易

東林北塘水，湛湛見底清。中生白芙蓉，菡萏三百莖。

白日發光彩，清飆散芳馨。泄香銀囊破，瀉露玉盤傾。

我慚塵垢眼，見此瓊瑤英。乃知紅蓮花，虛得清淨名。

夏萼敷未歇，秋房結才成。夜深眾僧寢，獨起繞池行。

欲收一顆子，寄向長安城。但恐出山去，人間種不生。

張大千 墨荷 (ink and wash painting by Zhang Daqian)

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically."

— Wassily Kandinsky

 

«臨江仙»  北宋 歐陽修

柳外輕雷池上雨，雨聲滴碎荷聲。

小樓西角斷虹明，闌干倚處，待得月華生。

燕子飛來窺畫棟，玉鉤垂下簾旌。

涼波不動簟紋平。水精雙枕，傍有墮釵橫。

薛濤 Poetry of Xue Tao

風

獵蕙微風遠，飄弦唳一聲。
林梢明淅瀝，松徑夜淒清。

月

魄依鉤樣小，扇逐漢機團。
細影將圓質，人間幾處看。

蟬

露滌音清遠，風吹故葉齊。
聲聲似相接，各在一枝棲。

On Cicadas

Dew-rinsed:
their pure notes
carry far.

Windblown:
as dry, fasting leaves
are blown.

Chirr after chirr,
as if in unison.

But each perches
on its one branch,
alone.

《秋泉》

泠色初澄一帶煙，幽聲遙瀉十絲弦。
長來枕上牽情思，不使愁人半夜眠。

Autumn, Hearing the Headwaters on a Moonlit Night

When that chilly hue strikes clear
the single strand of mist,

a muffled trill slides
far away:
ten silken strings.

It comes, long-drawn, to pillows.
It tugs at hearts and thoughts.

It will not let
at midnight
those who sorrow sleep.

張大千 薛濤詠詩圖

Zhang Daqian, Portrait of Xue Tao Chanting Poetry

《十離詩十首》

「犬離主」

出入朱門四五年，為知人意得人憐。
近緣咬著親知客，不得紅絲毯上眠。

「筆離手」

越管宣毫始稱情，紅箋紙上撒花瓊。
都緣用久鋒頭盡，不得羲之手里擎。

「馬離廄」

雪耳紅毛淺碧蹄，追風曾到日東西。
為驚玉貌郎君墜，不得華軒更一嘶。

「鸚鵡離籠」

隴西獨自一孤身，飛去飛來上錦茵。
都緣出語無方便，不得籠中再喚人。

「燕離巢」

出入朱門未忍拋，主人常愛語交交。
銜泥穢污珊瑚枕，不得梁間更壘巢。

「珠離掌」

皎潔圓明內外通，清光似照水晶宮。
只緣一點玷相穢，不得終宵在掌中。

"Pearl parted from the palm"

White as the moon,
round, bright,
translucent to the core.

Its brilliance seems reflected
from the crystal lunar keep.

Just one fleck:
now it's defiled

and no longer spends the nights
held within his
palm.

「魚離池」

跳躍深池四五秋，常搖朱尾弄綸鉤。
無端擺斷芙蓉朵，不得清波更一游。

"Fish parted from the pond"

She leapt and danced in a deep
lovely pool
through four or five years' falls.

She flicked her ruddy tail
to tease
the silky line,
the hook.

Then by chance she squirmed and broke
a his-face-lily bud,

and where that water ripples clear
no longer takes
her sport.

「鷹離 (革冓)」

爪利如鋒眼似鈴，平原捉兔稱高情。
無端竄向青云外，不得君王臂上擎。

「竹離亭」

蓊郁新栽四五行，常將勁節負秋霜。
為緣春筍鑽牆破，不得垂陰覆玉堂。

「鏡離台」

鑄瀉黃金鏡始開，初生三五月徘徊。
為遭無限塵蒙蔽，不得華堂上玉台。

(English translations by Jeanne Larsen, from Brocade River Poems: Selected Works of the Tang Dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao, Princeton University Press, 1987.)


More on Xue Tao and her writing:
薛濤詩全集
Brocade River Poems: Selected Works of the Tang Dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao
Xue Tao, at Other Women's Voices
Xue Tao short biography on Wikipedia

More on Zhang Daqian and his art:
Zhang Daqian and his Painting Gallery at China Online Museum
Chang Dai-chien in Californa at San Francisco State University
Zhang Daqian at the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Macao

John Thomson's China

John Thomson (14 June 1837 – 29 September 1921) was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer and traveller. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artifacts of eastern cultures. Upon returning home, his work among the street people of London cemented his reputation, and is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism. He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881.

約翰·湯姆森於1837年生於英國愛丁堡，是最早的旅行攝影師之一。1862年至1872年間，約翰·湯姆森遊遍柬埔寨、中國和遠東地區，拍攝當地人和風土人情。1872年出版了《福州和閩江》，隨後又出版《中國和中國人民畫報》。1917年，約翰·湯姆森被吸收為皇家地理學會會員，他的攝影文獻得到了肯定與認可。

A Manchu woman

A Manchu bride, Peking, 1871/1872.

A Manchu lady and her maid, late Qing dynasty, Beijing, China.

A Manchu lady and her maid

Travels in China

After a year in Britain following his early travels to Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malay, Sumatra, Ceylon, India, Bangkok, Angkor etc.), Thomson again felt the desire to return to the Far East. He returned to Singapore in July 1867, before moving to Saigon for three months and finally settling in Hong Kong in 1868. He established a studio in the Commercial Bank building, and spent the next four years photographing the people of China and recording the diversity of Chinese culture.
Thomson travelled extensively throughout China, from the southern trading ports of Hong Kong and Canton to the cities of Peking and Shanghai, to the Great Wall in the north, and deep into central China. From 1870 to 1871 he visited the Fukien region, travelling up the Min River by boat with the American Protestant missionary Reverend Justus Doolittle, and then visited Amoy and Swatow.

The Island Pagoda, Min River, Fukien, China, circa 1871.

A Manchu lady and her maid, late Qing dynasty, Beijing, China.

A Cantonese woman, Guangdong, China, 1870.

He went on to visit the island of Formosa with the missionary Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell, landing first in Takao in early April 1871. The pair visited the capital, Taiwanfu, before travelling on to the aboriginal villages on the west plains of the island. After leaving Formosa, Thomson spent the next three months travelling 3,000 miles up the Yangtze River, reaching Hupeh and Szechuan.

Thomson's travels in China were often perilous, as he visited remote, almost unpopulated regions far inland. Most of the people he encountered had never seen a Westerner or camera before. His expeditions were also especially challenging because he had to transport his bulky wooden camera, many large, fragile glass plates, and potentially explosive chemicals. He photographed in a wide variety of conditions and often had to improvise because chemicals were difficult to acquire. His subject matter varied enormously: from humble beggars and street people to Mandarins, Princes and senior government officials; from remote monasteries to Imperial Palaces; from simple rural villages to magnificent landscapes.

(Text via Wikipedia; images via: Wikipedia, 環球網歷史影像室 & Wellcome Library.)

*

More on John Thomson and his works:

The Photographs of John Thomson @ National Library of Scotland
Photographs from an exhibition, 10 Chancery Land Gallery
John Thomson's photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Biography and photographs at the Wellcome Library
John Thomson Biography @ Formosa, The Reed Institute

清末格格: Princesses of Late Qing China

In these old photos of Qing princesses and Imperial Court ladies, we can see the origin of qípáo 旗袍 (Wade-Giles ch'i-p'ao, also known as cheongsam):

When the Manchu ruled China during the Qing Dynasty, certain social strata emerged. Among them were the Banners (qí), mostly Manchu, who as a group were called Banner People (旗人 pinyin: qí rén). Manchu women typically wore a one-piece dress that came to be known as the qípáo (旗袍 or banner quilt). The qipao fitted loosely and hung straight down the body. Under the dynastic laws after 1636, all Han Chinese in the banner system were forced to wear a queue and dress in Manchurian qipao instead of traditional Han Chinese clothing (剃髮易服), under penalty of death. However after 1644, the Manchu relinquished this edict, allowing the main populace to continue to wear Hanfu, but gradually even they began to wear the qipao and changshan (長衫). In fact, only court officials were forbidden from wearing Ming court dress. In the following 300 years, the qipao became the adopted clothing of the Chinese, and was eventually tailored to suit the preferences of the population. Such was its popularity that the garment form survived the political turmoil of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that toppled the Qing Dynasty.

朗貝勒府五格格愛新覺羅·恆馥

毓朗大格格愛新覺羅·恆慧，定郡王溥煦的大孫女。

末代皇后婉容的養母愛新覺羅·恆香（毓朗貝勒的二格格）。

愛新覺羅·恆香

The original qipao was wide and loose. It covered most of the woman's body, revealing only the head, hands, and the tips of the toes. The baggy nature of the clothing also served to conceal the figure of the wearer regardless of age. With time, though, the qipao was tailored to become more form fitting and revealing. The modern version, which is now recognised popularly in China as the "standard" qipao, was first developed in Shanghai after 1900, after the Qing Dynasty fell. People eagerly sought a more modernised style of dress and transformed the old qipao to suit their tastes. Slender and form fitting with a high cut, it contrasted sharply with the traditional qipao. However, it was high-class courtesans and socialites in the city that would make these redesigned tight fitting qipao popular at that time. In Shanghai it was first known as zansae or "long dress" (長衫 = Mandarin: chángshān, Shanghainese: zansae, Cantonese: chèuhngsàam), and it is this name that survives in English as the "cheongsam."

毓朗的女兒愛新覺羅·恆馨，她的女兒婉容為清朝的末代皇后。

愛新覺羅·恆馨，人稱四格格。

載灃長女大格格愛新覺羅·韞媖旗裝照，曾嫁給婉容的哥哥潤良為妻。

Ladies of Chinese Imperial Court in Qing Dynasty

The modernised version is noted for accentuating the figures of women, and as such was popular as a dress for high society. As Western fashion changed, the basic cheongsam design changed too, introducing high-necked sleeveless dresses, bell-like sleeves, and the black lace frothing at the hem of a ball gown. By the 1940s, cheongsam came in a wide variety of fabrics with an equal variety of accessories.

The 1949 Communist Revolution ended the cheongsam and other fashion in Shanghai, but the Shanghainese emigrants and refugees brought the fashion to Hong Kong where it has remained popular. Recently there has been a revival of the Shanghainese cheongsam in Shanghai and elsewhere in Mainland China; the Shanghainese style functions now mostly as a stylish party dress.

Text reference: Wikipedia - Cheongsam
Image source: 環球網 歷史影像室

肅親王的十七格格愛新覺羅·顯琦（又名金默玉），川島芳子的妹妹。

In Trashy Diva Watercolour Garden qipao inspired by a Mid-Century design, at the Chelsea Flower Show, London, summer 2007.