An Affair to Forget: David Evans finds that Jens Neubert’s film takes a few liberties with the truth

The influence of Mathilde Wesendonck on the content of Wagner’s operas and the order in which he composed them was profound, and the broad outlines of The Zurich Affair will be familiar to most Wagnerians. Jens Neubert’s film, which is beautifully shot (although largely in Ticino rather than Zurich), begins with Otto and Mathilde first meeting Wagner in 1852 and ends with the composer’s enforced departure in 1858. A few months later Mathilde receives a copy of the score of Tristan und Isolde from Lucerne, and the credits roll to a piano rendition of Isolde’s Liebestod.