TT: * Why Richard Wagner? What´s your own relationship with his music?

JN: Years ago I curated some performances of Richard Wagner in Zurich and found out that the chapter of his life in Zurich was not so well known. What is commonly known is the Wagner with the beret in Bayreuth and the face of the old master. Even the Swiss people are not aware of his 9 years in Zurich between 1849-1858 and then later in Lucerne. The Zurich period of his life is, in my opinion, the most important, because he wrote the manuscripts of his most important operas, meaning the libretti, including Parsifal and he composed two parts of The Ring, Tristan and Isolde and The Wesendonck Songs. We know now that Tristan and Isolde is the entrance to modernity in music history and the mysteries behind development is the story of our film. In his youth until his fortieth birthday, Richard Wagner was a radical democrat and anarchist. After a failed German revolution, he lived in Zurich together with his german friends in exile under the protection of the Zurich community.

My relationship with his music is that mostly I cannot enjoy it, because what we hear in older recordings and now in concert halls is too loud and overwhelming the poetry of his words and thoughts are mostly lost. If you go deeper into his scripts and life, you realize that this is a problem since the first performances in his lifetime. Wagner wasn´t happy with the results in theatre, he would´ve liked to create real poetic drama, where you can understand the music like a language together with pictures and movements, he called it the „Gesamtkunstwerk“. He created this idea in his time in Zurich, in front of panoramic views during long hikes through the alps.

TT:* What was the process for making this film: what was the starting point, how did it evolve and how did you end up with this script?

JN: I started the script in 2011, finishing the first version in 2013 and then we did an audio version for radio, in German, for the Wagner jubilee in 2013. After that the question arose if we could create a film about the story. We started casting for the film in 2014. After a long journey of financing and casting, the film finally became possible because we found Joonas Saartamo in 2017.

TT: * What was the source material for the script?

JN: The source material for the script was his autobiography and letters by Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck, Minna Wagner, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner. The main source however is Mathilde Wesendonck´s book about the affair, which she published in 1904, 20 years after the death of Richard Wagner. Some of the minor characters are taken from a very interesting book by Berta Eckstein Diener, „The Happy Hill“.

TT: * How big a role did Wagner?s music play in crafting the story? Did choosing the specific music pieces affect the script of the film in any way?

JN: In a concert scene we used music from his early operas The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, which he performed in Zurich in concerts at this time. And the composer Torsten Rasch used motifs of Wagner and Liszt in his unbelievable score music, so we are looking into Wagners mind, as he was composing Tristan and Isolde and The Wesendonck Songs.

TT: * When was the movie shot? Which were the shooting locations?

JN: We shot the film during 6 weeks in May and June 2018, in different locations in Switzerland, for instance in the Alps, at the Vierwaldstättersee, and around Zurich locations.

TT: * Where did the rest of the cast come from, from Switzerland or Germany?

JN: The main actor beside Joonas comes from New York. A wonderful singer and actress, Sophie Auster. And all the others are from Switzerland, except Otto Wesendonck, the antagonist of Wagner, who is a german actor.

TT: * What was the casting process for the lead roles, played by Joonas Saartamo and Sophie Auster? * What were the specific things that made you choose Joonas and Sophie?

JN: After a long process of casting, I was totally depressed, because I couldn´t find the perfect match for the two main characters, Richard Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck. My colleague Jens Toivakainen then showed me clips of Joonas Saartamo, which hade a uge impact on me. We know a lot about the character of Wagner, the face, size, and we know something about his temperament. He spoke in some very intimate letters about his marriage with Minna, and also about his love for Mathilde, and last but not least Wagner spoeke about his demon, especially in his letters to Franz Liszt.

So how can you bring all this information and and variety of characteristics in to one actor? You cannot. You need somebody, with many different faces and colours. You need a very unique actor. Mr Saartamo has these qualities. And how does one make visible such deep love, nitwithstanding the erotic component, the love that generated Tristan and Isolde, and the most wonderful songs for orchestra, The Wesendonck Songs. For this required. Ms Auster is such a talent, from top to bottom, 100% filled with music. I saw Ms Auster in TV, in a documentation about young artist from New York, speaking and singing, and I was impressed by her clarity and beauty. So we did a casting in 2017, and after the casting the crew decided that we have to do the film with these two actors. After six more month we finally began shooting in spring 2018.

TT: * Any memorable incidents that happened during the film shoot, possibly concerning Joonas and Sophie?

JN: We did a first meeting for rehearsals in the Alps and I realised that Joonas was 100% prepared, with all his dialogues, and he couldn´t sit still, so we went for a long hike up a mountain and when we finally sat down, in a lovely spot, Joonas began to shout out his lines into the open panoramic view. And after that we didn´t need any more rehearsals.

I must also say that my team and also the other actors were very excited about working with the rising stars Sophie Auster and Joonas, and it turned out to be a wonderful cooperation with everybody on the set, and colleagues have said that it is great to see that all the actors were working together as an ensemble and you can really feel this in the film. I generates a unique athmospere, which I am very happy about.

12.Juni 2019 / JN / JT