An Aria A Day #25
ANNA WERLE
‘Der Engel’ (‘The Angel’)
from Wesendonck-Lieder
by Richard Wagner
Piano Irina Loskova
Anna Werle, who is singing the role of Brangäne in our production of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ later this year, brings us Wagner’s ‘Der Engel’, the first song from a set of five composed to poems by long-time muse Mathilde Wesendonck. Wagner himself saw these as ‘studies’ for ‘Tristan und Isolde’ which premiered some eight years later.
‘Wesendonck-Lieder’, together with the ‘Siegfried Idyll’, are two non-operatic works by Wagner that are most regularly performed.