Tristan lies dead now, in his castle by the sea. Brangane has made her revelation. King Marke has cried out in anguish and despair. "Todt denn Alles—Alles todt!"
Isolde presses her hands together on her breast. She drops them slowly to her sides. The blue radiance of the distant suns has transformed her coarse garment of hides into a robe fit for the princess that she is. Her face, in her vast sorrow, has attained new pinnacles of beauty—
"Tristan!" The magnificent Flagstad voice rises into the radiance of the blue suns.
Slowly, brokenly, Isolde begins the Liebestod—
"So might we die as ne'er to part...."
She hears the orchestra take up the themes of bliss, of parting; of transfiguration. She blends her voice into the music. The poignant colonnades of sound rise higher and ever higher into the stars, and when the climax is reached on a heart-rending surge of sound, the blue suns tremble in the sky.
Slowly, Isolde turns and re-enters the ship. She sinks down upon Tristan's breast, just as the little armature in her heart makes one final revolution and lies still. In the background of her fading brain, the music returns briefly to the themes of her magic and of her yearnings, dies gently away....
The curtain falls.