“[Shall I] breathe my life away in sweet scents?” – Liebestod, Act III, Tristan und Isolde

Midday dispatch from day two in Bayreuth.

Did laundry, probably the only place you can do this:

…and be seated next to someone reading the libretto of the same:

Errands at the local shopping center. Sad to see the tacky trend of bridge padlocks has infected this meaningless pedestrian pass over a canalway to the river Main:

I want more time at Wahnfried than time allows today, so I will go to the Altstadt and meander a bit, find a coffee, and enjoy my Ernest Newman commentary in preparation for Tristan und Isolde tonight. One gem, on the ruse that Tristan uses to disguise himself when receiving help from Isolde after killing her husband Morholt:

Knowing that, as the slayer of Morholt, he [Tristan] is taking his life on his hands, he tells Iseult that his name is Tantris. This was a touch that would delight the imagination of the Middle Ages, which always admired cunning in the outwitting of an enemy. To us, of course, it is charmingly naïve; it is very much as if a modern novelist were to ask us to believe that Mr. Winston Churchill managed to maintain himself for some weeks in the Cabinet councils of the Nazi party by calling himself Chinston Wurchill.

And on that delightful note, I’m off.