Pappano Conducts Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde

Tonight's Artists

Clay HilleyTristan

Tristan is one of the most punishing roles ever written for the tenor voice, especially Act III, an extended scene of feverish delirium that can last close to an hour and has defeated many great singers. It demands a true heldentenor of stamina and heft, and Clay Hilley, a Bayreuth Tristan and one of the few genuine Wagner heroic tenors active today, is ideally equipped for its extraordinary vocal and dramatic demands.

Clay Hilley is an American heldentenor, one of the very small number of singers worldwide capable of the heroic Wagner tenor roles. From Statham, Georgia, he trained at the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, the Manhattan School of Music and Boston University’s Opera Institute, and had his international breakthrough at the Bayreuth Festival in 2022, stepping in as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung with a single day’s notice; he returned to Bayreuth as Tristan in 2023. He won the Richard Tucker Award in 2024 and has become one of the most sought-after Wagner and Strauss tenors of his generation.

Sara JakubiakIsolde

Isolde is one of the supreme challenges for the dramatic soprano, from the furious pride of Act I through the rapturous love music of Act II to the transfiguring ‘Liebestod’ that crowns the entire opera. It asks for power, stamina and radiant beauty of tone across a four-hour span. Sara Jakubiak, admired for the warmth and beauty of her dramatic soprano, takes on one of opera’s Everest roles.

Sara Jakubiak is an American soprano from Bay City, Michigan, who trained at Yale and the Cleveland Institute of Music. After making her name in Europe as Marie in Wozzeck at English National Opera and in the ensemble of Frankfurt Opera, she built an international career in a dramatic repertoire including Chrysothemis (Elektra), Ariadne, the title role of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane, and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin). Praised for the warm, beautiful colour of her dramatic soprano, she brings warmth and dramatic intensity to the great Strauss and Wagner roles.

Marina PrudenskayaBrangäne

Brangäne, Isolde’s devoted confidante (and the one who, fatefully, substitutes the love potion for the death potion), has some of the opera’s most beautiful music, above all her offstage ‘Watch’ in Act II, warning the lovers as dawn approaches, floating over the orchestra. Marina Prudenskaya brings her rich dramatic mezzo to this pivotal role.

Marina Prudenskaya is a Russian mezzo-soprano who trained in St Petersburg and has been a member of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin since 2013. A winner of the ARD Competition, her repertoire spans the dramatic mezzo roles of Wagner and Strauss and the great Verdi parts (Amneris, Eboli). She is a noted Brangäne, Fricka and Eboli on the international stage.

Franz-Josef SeligKing Marke

King Marke, the betrayed uncle whose long Act II monologue of grief and bewilderment is one of the most moving passages in the opera, needs a bass of nobility and pathos rather than villainy. Franz-Josef Selig, perhaps the leading Marke of his generation, brings exactly the gravity and humanity the role demands.

Franz-Josef Selig, born in Mayen in 1962, is one of the most distinguished German basses of his generation, celebrated above all in the noble Wagner bass roles (King Marke in Tristan und Isolde and Gurnemanz in Parsifal foremost among them) as well as Sarastro, Rocco and Fiesco. Trained in Cologne, he has sung at the world’s leading houses and festivals, prized for the warmth, depth and dignity of his voice.

Gyula OrendtKurwenal

Kurwenal, Tristan’s loyal retainer, is the faithful companion who tends the dying hero through the long agony of Act III. The role asks for a strong, warm baritone and real dramatic commitment, both of which Gyula Orendt brings.

Gyula Orendt is a Hungarian-Romanian baritone, born in Transylvania and trained in Brașov and at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. He began his career at the Vienna Volksoper and the Berlin State Opera’s opera studio, becoming an ensemble member there, and has built an international career in Mozart, baroque and contemporary repertoire, admired for his warm tone and vivid stage presence.

Neal CooperMelot

Melot, the courtier who betrays the lovers to King Marke and wounds Tristan, is a smaller but dramatically crucial role, sung here by tenor Neal Cooper.

Michael GibsonSailor / Shepherd

The Young Sailor whose offstage song opens the opera, and the Shepherd whose plaintive pipe-tune haunts Act III, are sung here by Michael Gibson: small roles that frame the drama.

James EmersonSteersman

The Steersman is a brief but characterful role in Act I, taken here by James Emerson.

London Symphony Choruschoir

Tristan und Isolde uses its male chorus sparingly, above all for the sailors in Act I, but tellingly. The London Symphony Chorus, the orchestra’s long-standing partner chorus, supplies these voices.

The London Symphony Chorus was founded in 1966 as the chorus of the London Symphony Orchestra. Now an independent, self-governing choir, it keeps a close association with the LSO, performing and recording the great choral-orchestral repertoire with the orchestra at the Barbican and elsewhere, and also working with other orchestras.