It's Coming: Tristan und Isolde

This weekend will mark my first experience sitting through an entire opera composed by Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde. It's 5.5 hours long. Oh my gosh.

In fact, I have had very little exposure to Wagner's music period. I know some of the orchestral music from Tannhäuser ( I used to be a cellist), and have heard various performances of the Wesendonck Lieder (it's been suggested that Wagner may have had an affair with the poet---Mathilde Wesendonck!). I'm nervous I won't have the intestinal fortitude to withstand 5.5 hours of loud loud LOUD!

Here is Schmerzen from Wesendonck, as sung by the lovely Cheryl Studer. She is a dramatic soprano (singer of Wagner and heavier Richard Strauss), who disappeared for awhile in the late 90s due to some vocal problems, but has since had a resurgence...hooray! She was, however, sidelined by a heart attack in 2005. Yikes!:




It's not really a video, I just can't figure out how to add an mp3 file to my blog post. Any help out there?