In order to see this content you need to have both enabled and installed. Visit for full instructions
Australia's Katharine Tier performs Im Treibhaus from Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder No 3, in concert four of the 2009 competition.
Mathilde Wesendonck was Wagner's muse, and in 1857-8 he set five of her poems to music, one of the few times he was to use someone else's words. This song, perhaps the best-known of the set, was a sketch for Tristan und Isolde, and quotes almost exactly the prelude to Act III. In this melancholy text, the writer compares herself to tropical plants in a hothouse, being kept alive but missing home desperately.