The Boston Camerata Presents Tristan & Iseult

The Boston Camerata will perform their acclaimed production, Tristan & Iseult: A Medieval Romance in Poetry and Music, April 21 at 8pm and April 22 at 4pm at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, 25 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA. Tickets are $10-$60 and may be purchased at bostoncamerata.org.

Camerata's performance of the famous love story is drawn entirely from authentic medieval sources, and proposes a powerful and surprising rendition of the tale for modern audiences. The internationally acclaimed scenario and score by director emeritus Joel Cohen will be newly staged by artistic director Anne Azéma, who will also reprise her award-winning role as Iseult la Blonde.

Commissioned by a European record label in 1986, Cohen and Azéma employed musical and literary elements of the 13th-century Tristan and Iseult poem by Gottfried von Strassburg as the basis for the evening-length production. Their painstaking research, uncovering every possible medieval text about Tristan they could find, in old French and old German, led to this groundbreaking treatment of the legend, winner of the Grand Prix du Disque. Having since toured North America, Europe, and Asia with their medieval Tristan, Camerata now brings a revised and updated version of the production to Cambridge, praised by The New Yorker as being “fearlessly and brightly sung.”

The performances also feature Sumner Thompson as Tristan; Jason McStoots as King Mark; and Clare McNamara as Iseult's sister, Brangane. Shira Kammen performs on vielle and harp; Joel Cohen acts as the narrator and performs on citole and lauta, two kinds of medieval lute. The new lighting design is by Peter Torpey, and young professional vocalists from the Longy School of Music of Bard College will take part in the production.