WAGNER : TANNHÄUSER

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 21st of February 2016 at 6.05 - 10 pm
Sunday 31st of July 2011 at 3.03 - 7  pm
2016
WAGNER: Tannhäuser, an opera in three acts
Only a sacrifice of pure love can save the medieval minstrel Tannhäuser from hopeless sensuality
Tannhäuser....................... Johan Botha
Elisabeth........................... Eva-Maria Westbroek
Venus............................... Michelle DeYoung
Wolfram........................... Peter Mattei
Hermann........................... Günther Groissböck
Walter............................... Noah Baetge
Biterolf............................. Ryan KcKinny
Heinrich............................ Adam Klein
Reinmar............................ Ricardo Lugo
Shepherd.......................... Ying Fang
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/James Levine
2011
WAGNER: Tannhäuser, an opera in three acts
Tannhäuser.................... Johan Botha
Elisabeth....................... Eva-Maria Westbroek
Venus........................... Michaela Schuster
Wolfram........................ Christian Gerhaher
Hermann....................... Christof Fischesser
Walter........................... Timothy Robinson
Biterolf.......................... Clive Bayley
Heinrich........................ Steven Ebel
Reinmar........................ Jeremy White
Young shepherd............ Alexander Lee
Royal Opera House Chorus & Orch, Covent Garden
Semyon Bychkov (BBC)

INTRODUCTION 
PREVIEWREVIEW (10/10)
REVIEW (7/10)
REVIEW (2016) 
REVIEW (2016)
REVIEW (2016)
SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS (Metropera)
LIBRETTO (German)


Operawonk began circulating on the 23rd of December in 2006, and the index shows a host of operas (count 'em, there should be more than 200, but I really don't know) and yet I am astonished to see that Wagner's Tannhäuser does not appear among them. (Please remember to observe the Umlaut: the name is pronounced as in English tun/ton + hoyzer, NOT tan+howser.)
    (Now in 2016 the Metropera is staging it, and we can hear it on radio and see it at the cinema.)
   This music-drama (psycho-drama even) has had a significant place in my life. I was first thrilled by the overture at a youth concert of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Some years later I heard a performance of that prelude on the radio; it was from a concert put on for medicos at a conference; it was conducted by Bernard Heinze, and the return of the pilgrim chorus at the end took off thrillingly. (In the Paris version of the opera, this glorious reprise is omitted, and the music leaps into the Venusberg and its sensuous ballet.) In Melbourne I saw a performance of the original Dresden version on a week night, and I came back to the Saturday matinee, to let it have its powerful effect on my psyche again. I owned a second-hand version of the overture and the music of the Venusberg (Latin Mons Veneris), with the prelude and love-death from Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Paul Kletzki; the cover depicted the love-goddess naked; I now have a world Record Club pressing with a plain cover. This London production is the Vienna version, a mix of the old and the new; the denizens of the den of sensuality are not unclothed, or even in skin-coloured body suits, but in evening dress.

   Of all the opinions about the opera expressed in the Metropera archives which are no longer accessible, the one that I was most intrigued to read was by the Reverend Father Owen Lee (in the "underground" section); he has been a regular commentator in the opera broadcasts from New York: “Tannhäuser is not, then a simple dramatization of the victory of sacred over profane, of spirit over flesh, of Christianity over paganism. It is a celebration of a synthesis of those two opposites, the healing of a soul torn between two worlds."  I think it has indeed done that for me, even though I have also studied a heap of ascetic and mystical literature, which has urged me to avoid sexual thoughts and acts entirely.  Not too long ago, I got to sing the pilgrim chorus, and this performance of it included the women of the Palmerston North Choral Society, thus achieving further resolution of opposites. (And this year, 2016, we will be doing it again.)