NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 About 4 1\/2 hours after the first notes of Wagner’s \u201cTristan und Isolde,\u201d a startling sound emerges from the wings, one many in the audience likely have never heard before.<\/p>\n
A nearly 4-foot wooden horn known as a holztrompete, specially constructed to the composer’s somewhat ambiguous specifications, signals the arrival of the ship carrying Isolde and King Marke to Brittany, inspiring a mortally wounded Tristan to hang on to life for a few more moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoyous,\u201d said Billy R. Hunter Jr., the Metropolitan Opera’s<\/a> principal trumpet, who plays the wooden horn from stage left.<\/p>\n Yuval Sharon’s compelling new production starring Lise Davidsen<\/a> that opened Monday to mostly rave reviews features a specially constructed horn nearly Hunter’s height \u2014 it measures a minimum 46.5 inches and lengthens slightly if the tuning slide is turned.<\/p>\n \u201cYou listen to the sound of the holztrompete and the imitation, it\u2019s a clear difference,\u201d said bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, who sings Marke alongside Davidsen\u2019s Isolde and Michael Spyres\u2019 Tristan. \u201cIt blows my mind to think that Wagner created it himself. How many humans have created an instrument? It really sounds like victory.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Wagner Tuba was invented in the 1850s by the composer for his Ring Cycle to bridge the sounds of horn and trombones, the holztrompete’s details are more nebulous.<\/p>\n Wagner wrote the notes for an English horn but included a footnote to his score saying it should have \u201cthe effect of a very powerful natural instrument, such as the alphorn.\u201d As pointed out in research by Dani\u00ebl Vernooij, Wagner added in a June 15, 1861, letter to violinist and conductor Heinrich Esser that he wanted it to be \u201cat least three feet long, made of wood, almost trumpet-like, slightly curved downwards so that the bell is open to the side.\u201d<\/p>\n While a wood trumpet was used at the opera\u2019s premiere, Wagner\u2019s Bayreuth Festival in Germany switched in 1891 to a newly created woodwind called the Heckel-clarina, which resembled a soprano saxophone. Conductor Hans Richter replaced that at Bayreuth in 1902 with a t\u00e1rogat\u00f3, a woodwind common to Hungarian folk music. The t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 was used by the Met when James Levine conducted \u201cTristan\u201d from 1981 through 2008.<\/p>\n Mitch Weiss, a Met clarinet for 38 years, took over the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 in the 1980s from Roger Hiller.<\/p>\n \u201cOne day he said, `I\u2019m sick and tired of playing this. You play it.\u2032 And he handed me the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3,\u201d recalled Weiss, now 93.<\/p>\n And then, Weiss had to audition for Levine alongside principal trumpet Mel Broiles.<\/p>\n \u201cWe each had to play the solo,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cI played it on a t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 and the first trumpet played it on a low horn. And Jimmy said: `T\u00e1rogat\u00f3 plays it.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Hungarians used it as a battle cry instrument because it was very loud,\u201d said Dean LeBlanc, a Met orchestra clarinet and bass clarinet who played the t\u00e1rogat\u00f3 in the 2016 production conducted by Simon Rattle<\/a>.<\/p>\n When Daniel Barenboim led the opera at the Met later in 2008, he brought his own holztrompete.<\/p>\n \u201cHe pulled out this thing. I\u2019m like: What in the world?\u201d Hunter recalled. He said Barenboim told him, \u201c’This is what we use at Bayreuth.’\u201d<\/p>\nWagner’s innovations went beyond the score<\/h2>\n
Barenboim made the wooden trumpet’s modern Met introduction<\/h2>\n