“A Tristan with a difference” – that was how the critic of the Neues Österreich newspaper described Frank Martin’s Le Vin herbé (The Magic Potion) after the first staged performance of this secular oratorio at the 1948 Salzburg Festival. The concert version had already been premièred six years previously in Zurich. In its more than 60-year history Le Vin herbé (based on Joseph Bédier’s novel Tristan and Iseult) has enjoyed countless concert performances and several staged productions. In recent years it has been seen as a chamber opera in Zurich, Paris and Berlin.