The "Note One Heritage" series makes important historical recordings from music history newly accessible. The legendary performance of July 23, 1952 at the Festspielhaus Bayreuth is considered one of the most striking documents of the early postwar years and the artistic renewal of the festival in the era of so-called New Bayreuth. Herbert von Karajan conducted the work, steadily building the dramatic tension of the score and ultimately culminating in an almost ethereal Liebestod. At the center stands an extraordinary pair of singers: Martha Mödl, one of the dominant highly dramatic voices of her time, and Ramon Vinay, whose powerful, passionate Tristan is one of the great interpretations of this role. Their meeting unites two contrasting temperaments to create an exciting musical dramaturgy—from eruptive passion to meditative inwardness. The cast is completed with excellent forces from Bayreuth, such as Hans Hotter as Kurwenal, Ludwig Weber as King Marke, and Ira Malaniuk as Brangäne. The recording by Bayerischer Rundfunk—long out of print and now newly reissued—captures the atmosphere of a performance whose intensity and directness were already praised as extraordinary at the time. As the first release in the Note One Heritage series, this edition invites you to rediscover an important event in the history of opera and festivals.