At this time also he first began to lay out the plan of Tristan and Isolde, and to think over the possibilities of Parsifal.
In 1857 he completed the libretto of Tristan and Isolde at Venice, adopting the Celtic legend modified by Gottfried of Strasburg's medieval version.
Wagner now settled for a time in Vienna, where Tristan and Isolde was accepted, but abandoned after fifty-seven rehearsals, through the incompetence of the tenor.
On the 10th of June 1865 at Munich, Tristan and Isolde was produced for the first time, with Herr and Frau Schnorr in the principal parts.
Compare the mere fairy-tale mystery of Lohengrin's command that Elsa shall never ask to know his name, with the profound fatalism of Isolde's love-potion.
