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Updated: May 12, 2025
He left his hotel for the station, singing the great aria of the fourth Act of the Favorita: neglected since that mighty German with his Rienzi, and Tannhauser, and Tristan and Isolda, had mastered him, to the displacement of his boyhood's beloved sugary -inis and -antes and-zettis; had clearly mastered, not beguiled, him; had wafted him up to a new realm, invigorating if severer.
At times, when our attention has to be concentrated on the personages on the opening stage, the sea song theme, with its smell of the pungent, salt sea air, disappears; then, as I have remarked, it gradually creeps in again, so that we do not realize that it has ever been absent; or, again, as during the conversation between Isolda and Brangaena, it breaks in abruptly, with the roar of the seamen's voices and Kurvenal's savage orders.
Take, for example, the theme which Isolda sings when she perceives death to be the only cure for her woes. Later, when she is compelling Tristan to drink the poison-cup, the sailors break out into "Yo-heave-ho!" and he says, "Where are we?" "Near to the end!" she says, to the accompaniment of this same theme.
Tristan knows how great is the crime he must make amends for: not merely Morold's death, but the winning of Isolda's heart, the desertion, the cruel coming to claim her as his uncle's bride; he says he will drink only in oblivion can he find refuge from the toils in which he has involved himself; he lifts the cup to his lips, drinks, and as he drinks Isolda, crying "Betrayed, even here," snatches the cup from him and drains it.
As soon as the last convulsive movements of the dying man had ceased, they let the corpse drop the whole height of the three storeys, and opening the doors of the hall, departed as though nothing had happened. Isolda, when at last she contrived to get a light, rapidly ran to the queen's chamber, and finding the door shut on the inside, began to call loudly on her Andre.
But even as the young man left the office and issued upon the crowded street, he knew that he had not the remotest intention of acting upon the Consul's advice, to the extent of leaving Cuba at all events: for he felt that he was morally pledged to stand by the Montijos, so long as they might need him; and there was the complication of the ownership of the yacht, which would need a great deal of straightening out; and, lastly, his close association with the lovely Senorita Isolda, during the four months' cruise just ended, had not been without its effect upon him; so that, taking things all round, he told himself that for him to leave Cuba at present was quite out of the question.
Tristan afterwards confesses that ambition led him to do this; but in any case it was very close to a deed of downright treachery, unless the fact was that Tristan did not suspect Isolda's love for him, or thought his station too humble. Wagner's language is ambiguous, and probably he intended his meaning to be the same. Isolda has no two opinions about his conduct.
Then, when Don Hermoso had released this first figure from his embrace, and turned, hat in hand, to meet the second, Senorita Isolda treated her brother Carlos to a like greeting, after which she turned, with a sunny smile and eyes flashing welcome, to Jack.
His life, apparently, went on pretty much as before; but the financial situation was rapidly becoming intolerable even to him. The famous invitation to write an opera for Rio de Janeiro arrived, and he promptly set to work on the subject he had mentioned in a letter to Liszt a few years before, Tristan and Isolda.
The hoarse voices of the sailors are heard outside hailing King Mark; the ship has reached land; Brangaena enters, and is horrified to find that both have taken the potion; the pair cling to one another; a stream of the most passionate music in existence sweeps on: Brangaena tries to attire Isolda in the royal cloak; Kurvenal shouts to Tristan that the king is coming; Tristan can understand nothing "What king?" he asks; the deck is crowded with knights; and the curtain falls as the lovers embrace and the trumpets announce the arrival of King Mark.
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