Programme booklet »Tannhäuser«

R I C H A R D WAG N E R

TANNHÄUSER

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

6

A ROCKSTAR ON TOUR LYDIA STEIER IN AN INTERVIEW P.

12

TANNHÄUSER AS A DRAMA OF AN ARTIST PHILIPPE JORDAN P.

18

THE LONG JOURNEY OF TANNHÄUSER OLIVER LÁNG

P.

24

OMNIPRESENT IN VIENNA ANDREAS LÁNG P.

28

THE TRIPTYCH OF ARTWORK DEVELOPMENT A CONVERSATION WITH MOMME HINRICHS & ALFRED MAYERHOFER P.

32

THANK YOU, RICHARD WAGNER! JONATHAN DOVE P.

40

IMPRINT

R I C H A R D WAG N E R

TANNHÄUSER UND DER SÄNGERKRIEG AUF WARTBURG ROMANTIC GREAT OPERA

in three acts (“Viennese version”)

Libretto RICHARD WAGNER

ORCHESTRA 3 flutes (3rd also piccolo)

2 oboes / 2 clarinets

1 bass clarinet / 2 bassoons

4 horns / 3 trumpets

3 trombones / tuba

timpani / percussion / 2 harps

violin I / violin II / viola

violoncello / double bass STAGE MUSIC 3 flutes / 2 oboes / cor anglais

3 clarinets / 2 bassoons / 10 horns

9 trumpets / 4 trombones / tambourine

cymbals / triangle / harp / viola

PREMIÈRES Dresden Court Theatre (“Dresden version”) Opéra de Paris (“Paris version”) Vienna Court Opera (“Viennese version”)

19 OCT 1845 13 MAR 1861 22 NOV 1875

PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 22 JUNE 1870 Vienna Court Opera DURATION

3 H 15 M

INCL. 2 INTERMISSIONS

..

TANNHAUSER

SYNOPSIS ACT 1 Tannhäuser has for a long time been living in the realm of Venus, whose spell he has fallen under. She has repeatedly cap­ tivated him. Now, however, Tannhäuser has become weary of life with the goddess of love. He longs to return to Earth and become a human among human beings again. Venus warns him he will never forget how happy he was with her. But neither her powers of seduction nor her rage can change his mind. Finally, she urges him to return to his happiness with her if the world rejects him. Tannhäuser counters that his happiness is founded on the Virgin Mary. Uttering the holy name makes the realm of Venus disappear.

Tannhäuser hears the spring song of a goatherd. Pilgrims pass by on their way to Rome. Tannhäuser gives thanks for his return with a prayer. Landgrave Hermann and the minstrels he has invited travel through the region. They recognise Tannhäuser as a friend who left them once. They try to overcome his re­ sistance and persuade him to return to their fellowship on the Wartburg. He only lets himself be won over when Wolfram von Eschenbach announces that Elisabeth, the landgrave’s niece, will welcome him there.

ACT 2 Elisabeth happily greets the hall she has avoided since Tannhäu­ ser’s departure. She does not hide her attraction to Tannhäuser, and also indicates this to the Landgrave. The climax of the feast Landgrave Hermann gives in Tannhäuser’s honour is a minstrel contest, whose theme is “to fathom the true essence of love.”

Previous pages:

EKATERINA GUBANOVA as VENUS

4

SYNOPSIS

All the participants, starting with Wolfram, sing of the spiritual value of love. Tannhäuser alone sees the true essence of love as sensual delight. Walther von der Vogelweide and Biterolf con­ tradict him. This puts Tannhäuser on his mettle. Ecstatically, he praises Venus and her realm. The party on the Wartburg is horrified and the knights attack Tannhäuser – but Elisabeth, although deeply wounded, saves him by intervening. She ob­ tains mercy for him, provided that he seeks forgiveness in Rome. Tannhäuser willingly joins the band of pilgrims.

ACT 3 Elisabeth awaits the return of the pilgrims daily. They finally arrive, but Tannhäuser is not among them. Elisabeth begs the Virgin Mary to accept her life as atonement for Tannhäuser’s guilt. In his lonely song to the evening star, Wolfram also re­ veals a longing for forgiveness. A solitary pilgrim arrives. It is Tannhäuser, broken in body and spirit. He reveals his sorrow to his friend, Wolfram. The hard pilgrimage had been in vain, the Pope in Rome had refused him absolution, saying that he can never find redemption, as surely as the Pope’s crozier will never bloom. Bereft of hope, he seeks only Venus and her realm.

He feels close to the goddess of love, when Wolfram speaks Eli­ sabeth’s name and breaks Venus’s spell. A funeral procession approaches from the Wartburg. Elisabeth has died. However, her selfless love seems to have brought about a miraculous re­ demption.

5

OLIVER LÁNG IN AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR LYDIA STEIER

A ROCKSTAR ON TOUR THE DIRECTOR LYDIA STEIER ON THE ROLE OF

ARTISTS IN SOCIETY, ON FEAR AND ENVY TOWARDS OUTSIDERS AND THEATRE’S POWERLESSNESS IN POLITICAL MATTERS. ol

Like all great stories, the theme of Tannhäuser has been affected by economic fluctuations. The underlying story is an old one, it came to the boil in the German Romantic Period and became very popular. What can it tell us now? Which of its desires are current ones, what questions does it raise? ls Essentially there are actually two stories, that of Tannhäuser and that of the singing contest – Wagner linked them together in his opera. As you say, in the Romantic Period Tannhäuser’s quest was a very important trope, but it also symbolised a misunderstood artist unable to operate within the confines of society. And there are parallels there with Lord Byron and other writers. The homelessness of the protagonist was something Wagner found intrinsically interesting, in other operas too: being in between worlds, unable to find his pro­ per place. During the rehearsal process this theme of the artist in society was

obviously a very important one for us.

I was talking to Clay Hilley, our Tann­ häuser singer, about the fact that we all know that pain of living slightly in another world – or at least of not quite feeling at home in the “normal” one.

Or, to take a more detached view: a lot of people still regard artists as outsiders. ol And yet people like asking them for their opinions, before elections, for example. Why? Because they suspect that artists are gifted with greater sensitivity? Or because they are important personalities? Or because politics is part of their job? ls Maybe it’s just the ones who are interviewed who think they’re import­ ant. (laughs) But seriously: of course, we filter and engage with the current polit­ ical landscape in our work in one way or another. Our environment is a kind of source material that provides inspi­ ration. Though I think that in especially dark political times we are confronted with the fact that art really can’t have

6

A ROCKSTAR ON TOUR

very much influence. No matter what the interviewers think. ol But should an artist be like a thorn in society, as Wagner also believed? ls Wagner undoubtedly saw his art works and his theoretical writings as a way of communicating his political opinion. Although in many respects, including the utopian ones, I do not share Wagner’s view. But where I do agree is that theatre has the duty to hold a mirror up to society. To formu­ late a critical opinion of our society.

It would simply be lazy for a director just to put something decorative and pretty on stage. One should also en­ courage people to think. There needs to be a recognisable message even if it is conveyed through great images and skilful handiwork. Images alone are not enough, now matter how impres­ sive they might be. There always has to be a reason why one is doing a piece now. Why one is engaging with it. ol You’ve just given me a nice link to my next question: what is your motivation for presenting Tannhäuser now? ls There are so many parallels be­ tween the characters in the opera and what is happening today. At times it’s quite electrifying how topical some aspects seem. Tannhäuser’s inability to fit in with a world, his inner turmoil, his drifting off into hallucinations. If we think about what psychologists tell us about Generation Z, so many of whom suffer from intense depres­ sion and panic disorders because they are continually being pulled back and forth between an online world and real life. When we hear about people who are caught between morality, money, success, freedom, family and other

things – these are all issues and chal­ lenges of our time.

0l

Does your interest in this come from presenting these phenomena or from saying: I’m trying to solve a problem here?

ls I can’t solve any problems in the theatre. If that was what I wanted to do, I would be a politician. What I am concerned with is engaging dynami­ cally and respectfully with our age, a critical relationship with our world, a questioning. That’s my job. ol But is your Tannhäuser a realistic story? Baudelaire believed that the characters were simply principles. ls There is no doubt that we are in a metaphorical sphere, on one hand there is passion and pleasure, on the other there is duty and piety. These are archetypical worlds that are brought to life through music. But the piece is also enormously subjective, and we play with its viewpoints: there is an “objec­ tive” stage and then suddenly, through lighting and movement changes and odd apparitions, we find ourselves in Tannhäuser’s head. The whole thing oscillates between realism and a sub­ jective view. In this way we can make these metaphors more human and more accessible. So that there is not only an academic construct of con­ flicting duty and desire, but also the journey of a hero – a hero who fails completely. ol So is the world of Venus in Tannhäuser’s head or is it real? ls Venus has to cultivate a certain tactile, real quality on stage – after all, she can be seen for long enough. (laughs) But it is not certain whether she is just a figment of his imagination or whether he was genuinely with

7

LYDIA STEIER IN AN INTERVIEW

her. And there are other characters in the piece who would have liked to be there too… act 2 is then a little Macbeth-like: we see the spirits from act 1 return. Here again, there is a tension between a subjective and ob­ jective world, we use slow motion and lighting changes, and Tannhäuser has flashbacks. No matter how hard he tries to keep these worlds apart, it’s not possible. He fails in his attempt to chop part of himself off, as it were, to enable himself to live a different life.

That’s conceivable as an objective but it can’t be realised. ol

Do you show a better and a worse world? Is Venus’ world a good one? Does the severity of act 2 make it the more frightening of the two?

ls By setting act 2 in the period around 1938 – even if there are no Nazi symbols – it does take on negative connotations. Whereas act 1 is set in a sort of cabaret world, vaudeville-like, that is reminiscent of the 1920s. The costumes are based on Otto Dix, Max Ernst and other artists who were sub­ sequently defamed as being “degen­ erate.” That is a world that I would personally very much like to be in, it is inviting, attractive. What we do to create a second level in parallel to it is to reproduce theatre history a little: act 1 is like a Dionysian festival, it is pre-theatrical, it represents an age when ritual was of great significance and there was no distinction between those taking part and those watching.

Then it becomes more familiar, there is a theatre with performers and a paying audience, and ultimately we end up in a no-man’s-land with screens where contact has broken down between those who create the content and those

who consume it. When Tannhäuser dies, the dream of a more sensual theatre returns – a kind of fever dream in his moment of death. ol

Why does Tannhäuser want to escape the luxurious life of act 1? ls That’s an important question which we’ve spent a long time talking about! But: you eat too much, you drink too much, then you start to hate your­ self when you can’t succumb to excess.

Everything is too fast, too loud… and he also has a genuine love for Elisabeth.

That shouldn’t be forgotten, Tannhäuser simply misses her. His problem is that he has a great love that binds him to her, he doesn’t feel comfortable in the luxurious world, but he doesn’t fit into the one in act 2 at all. We can compare him to a rockstar on tour who has ex­ perienced too much excess and yet can’t stand being at home with his wife and children. It’s simply the case that in his soul he is absolutely homeless – and that’s painful. ol And Elisabeth really does love him. ls Yes, no question about that! They were or are connected by true love. In our version all three – Wolfram, Elisa­ beth and Tannhäuser – are ill-suited to the society of act 2. But Wolfram and Elisabeth conform. But ultimately, they don’t belong. And when Tannhäuser vanishes, Elisabeth falls prey to desper­ ation, a genuine depression – and shuts herself away. She feels her life seems meaningless without him. ol So the difference is that Tannhäuser is not willing to pretend. ls He can’t be diplomatic. Wolfram might be able to sit through an event with a painted-on smile, but Tannhäu­ ser is incapable of that, he’ll say: “To hell with it, I’m off!” At some point we

8

A ROCKSTAR ON TOUR

all learn to stand in line and sometimes keep our mouths shut – and that’s ok.

You learn this is how you have to behave in society and here are the boundaries.

And we all know people who are not prepared to do that and just go too far.

Who also rather enjoy behaving differ­ ently. Tannhäuser is tormented by this need to behave differently in society.

But he can’t help himself, he simply doesn’t possess the conformist strate­ gies that the others do. ol In other words, his eruption is pre-programmed. ls I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the landgrave had chosen something other than “love” as the theme for the competition. Some­ thing simpler. For example: describe nature! But then it would never have produced the plot for an opera. (laughs) So it had to be love – and love is com­ plicated and sweaty and smelly, and these funny poems by the others that have nothing to say: Tannhäuser can’t stand them. He longs for complete authenticity, even if it will cause con­ flict and is completely impossible. That reminds us of Wagner again. Authen­ ticity, authenticity – no matter how many people have to suffer for it. ol If Wolfram only belongs to the society of act 2 – what is his relationship to Elisabeth and Tannhäuser? ls In our version Wolfram is in love with Tannhäuser. With Tannhäuser as a person. And he is envious that he can’t be as authentic and live his life to the fullest like he can. When Tannhäu­ ser says: I was inside the Venusberg, then he has to act a certain degree of outrage. ol And to what extent is society afraid of Tannhäuser?

ls They can certainly be afraid of his excesses, of forgetting themselves, of abandoning their manners and rec­ titude. Or their outrage is also just an act, a social construct, because many people have always had a secret sex life, they’ve slept around – only they don’t talk about it. Then some of them aren’t at all afraid, they just pretend to be indignant. ol Sympathising with Tannhäuser in act 2 was very important to Wagner. Is that something you can relate to? ls Yes, definitely! He loses every­ thing, the opportunity for a loving re­ lationship with Elisabeth has gone, all he has left is the chance that he might somehow be able to save himself and find redemption. ol Redemption from what? From his authenticity? ls From himself. In the sense of: save me from what I want. That’s what every addict shouts out. ol Our heart will usually beat for a certain character. Which one is it for you? ls Interestingly, it’s Wolfram. Be­ cause at times we all want to be Tann­ häuser, to behave badly, even if it’s agonising. But to survive at all when you are a woman working as a director, you often have to fit in, smile a lot and behave well. It is really astoni­shing, but women are allowed to let it rip far less often than their male directing col­ leagues. The parameters are and have always been different. There are rules for everyone but as a woman you clearly have to keep an eye on more of them.

Wolfram is not a woman, clearly. But I understand what he feels under the pressures imposed by society.

9

Following pages: SCENE

PHILIPPE JORDAN

TANNHÄUSER AS

A DRAMA OF AN ARTIST In possibly his best-known quote, Wagner confessed that he still owed the world a Tannhäuser, and this logi­ cally crops up in virtually every casual operatic discussion of the Minnesinger vacillating between Venus and Elis­ abeth. The fact that Wagner himself is said to have said it shortly before the end of his life (the quote can be found in Cosima’s diaries on 23 January 1883) is no coincidence: a closer look at the genesis of the work reveals a veritable thicket of layers of adaptations by the composer, which every interpreter who is about to produce Tannhäuser should be aware of. Simplifying somewhat, they must distinguish between the earlier Dresden version (1845) (which, on closer inspection, already contains three layers of adaptation), the later Paris version (1861) and the 1875 ver­ sion for the new production at today’s Vienna State Opera, which was Wag­ ner’s last revision. The fundamental differences between Dresden and Paris relate primarily to the passages dealing with the Venusberg in the first act. In the intervening period Wagner had de­ veloped an entirely new intensive ex­ pression of sensual ecstasy in Tristan und Isolde, so that he could no longer leave Tannhäuser’s encounters with the in the Middle Age disreputable goddess of love from antiquity in their original

form. He had musically developed the ability to present entirely new qualities of eroticism and ecstasy, and he wanted to show this at these points through the modified instrumentation and harmo­ nisation, the resulting new possibilities for shading and drama, and the addi­ tional ballet music for the Bacchanal.

By contrast, Wagner left other parts of the opera virtually or entirely un­ touched for the Paris performances, which inevitably led to certain stylis­ tic disparities and a clash between the early and later Wagner. The argument in favour of the Dresden version would accordingly be stylistic homogeneity, while the argument for the Paris or Vi­ enna version would be the particular appeal of the marked contrast between the carnal world of Venus and the so­ ber, restrained world of the Wartburg.

I very much appreciate this range, so that I was in favour of presenting the later version (with minor modi­ fications), particularly since the last production at the Vienna State Opera in 2010 showed the Dresden version.

But above all because, on studying the work again, I realised why Wag­ ner made these far-reaching revisions and did not retract them until the end of his life. The version now known as the Viennese version is in fact Richard Wagner’s final version. The exceptions

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TANNHÄUSER AS A DR A M A OF AN ARTIST

I mention relate to the minstrel contest at the Wartburg in the second act. Wag­ ner made cuts here in Paris, because the Paris tenor for Walter von der Vo­ gelweide was not entirely up to the role (and it probably didn’t look much better in Wagner’s own rehearsals in Munich in 1867 and Vienna in 1875). However, this change meant that the minstrel contest was over almost too quickly, so that I – like many of my colleagues – am reverting to the more dramatically logi­ cal Dresden version, dropping the more harmonically colourful transitions in the Paris and Vienna version. This doesn’t trouble me, given that the Wart­ burg world should, as already noted, be more inherently ascetic. We are also putting back the second verse of Tan­ nhäuser’s song to Venus “Dank deiner Huld” (Thanks be to your favour), which was cut in Paris, undoubtedly as Wagner intended. In addition we are taking over some modifications to the instrumentation in 1875, particularly a detail in the overture which is still not shown in any printed edition. In bar 221 Wagner demanded a change in the Vi­ enna rehearsals to the clarinet melody line, which conductor Hans Richter entered manually in the parts for per­ formance. This instruction was always followed at the Vienna State Opera, until Herbert von Karajan deleted it in his new production in 1963, for rea­ sons which are no longer apparent. The première on 22 March 2025 will also return to Wagner’s final intentions. In addition to the so-called Bacchanal, the most significant change Wagner made for Paris is the expansion of the role of Venus. This was done much less for the prominent actress playing Venus in Paris (in terms of fame, she was in no way inferior to the Dresden premiere

Venus, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient) but above all in the realisation that the design of Venus in the Dresden version was dramatically and dramaturgically inadequate. Wagner wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck from Paris: “Strange: at that time, when I was doing Tann­ häuser, I was not yet able to achieve anything inward, passionate, I would almost like to call it feminine-extatic: I had to rethink and redesign everything: truly, I am shocked by my backdrop Ve­ nus! Well, that will probably be better this time ... But the freshness, the joie de vivre in Tannhäuser is all good, and I can’t change a thing: everything that has the scent of the saga about it is ethereal even there; Tannhäuser’s lament and bosom are quite successful: the groupings are incorrigible. Only in passionate passages did I have to help out from time to time: for example, I replaced a very dull passage in the vi­ olins at Tannhäuser’s departure at the end of the second act with a new one, which is very heavy, but only satisfies me. But I can offer my local orchestra everything: it is the first in the world ...

“Wagner was therefore aware that he was bringing more of an allegory to the stage in Dresden than a woman of flesh and blood. In addition, the Dres­ den Venus is extremely unfavourably set vocally (especially for today’s or­ chestral tuning) and breaks off where it could actually be interesting and rewarding for the actress. Wagner de­ liberately corrects this in Paris, so that here we see a couple in a veritable mar­ ital quarrel and a woman who pulls out all the stops in her struggle to overcome the loss of her lover and goes through all the emotional highs and lows.

Of course, this owes most to the Tristanexperience, but it also foreshadows the

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TANNHÄUSER AS A DR A M A OF AN ARTIST

Kundry of the last work with aston­ ishing clarity. Wagner’s self-criticism in his letter to Mathilde is clear and well-founded and he never wavered on this point until the end of his life.

The advocates of the Dresden version, who in my experience are very often the same people who otherwise complain that the master’s instructions and ex­ plicit wishes are not taken seriously enough, have as arguments against the innovations of Paris and Vienna only the sentence from the end of Wagner’s life quoted at the beginning and a short dialogue report, also handed down by Cosima (dated 6 November 1877), where Wagner muses late in the evening whether the Venusberg in the new version was not too long after all...).

Well, that was more than five years be­ fore his death and he never returned to it – quite the opposite – on 13 March 1881, Anton Rubinstein played the Paris Bacchanal music for him at the piano in Wahnfried and Wagner was completely intoxicated and moved by his new ar­ rangement at the time ... What I want to say is: let’s not turn individual thoughts or remarks recorded by Cosima, usually embedded in reports about the master’s quality of sleep and the usual intestinal complaints, into more than they ulti­ mately were – momentary thoughts.

The fact is that Richard Wagner made no further changes to the work after the rehearsal in Vienna in November 1875 until his death 13 years later. Wagner himself never bothered with the diver­ gence of styles and the dramaturgical interventions are so convincing that I think we can trust the master’s last word on Tannhäuser. Only one person could have gone beyond what we have today, and that would have been Richard Wag­ ner himself. But it never came to that.

ON THE WAY TO MUSIC DRAMA Naturally, even for Wagner achieve­ ments did not simply fall into his lap.

Particularly the three earlier stage­ works which he described as “Roman­ tic operas” – Der fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin – beautifully show an evolution in the gradual ap­ proach to the music drama that he de­ veloped. Der fliegende Holländer is still a number opera in the German Romantic tradition. In Tannhäuser, the numbers (with the exception of Wolfram’s song to the evening star in the third act) are so bound up in each other that inter­ vening applause has become unthink­ able, and Lohengrin is already virtu­ ally composed throughout, and also deliberately has a prelude rather than an overture. The renewed work on its composition meant that the Tannhäuser overture also underwent significant formal development. Even in the Paris or Vienna version, it is still a classic rag­ bag overture including all the impor­ tant themes of the piece and outlining the action. However, Wagner trans­ formed the originally self-contained orchestral work to the extent that he made it a seamless transition to the start of the act (and the action), moving straight from the world of the pilgrims to the Venusberg setting. This takes the audience directly to the Bacchanal bal­ let. Wagner, who never worried about the feelings of an audience, took no notice of the resulting scandal in Paris, where the (in)famous and influential Jockey Club came to the opera after din­ ner, which meant after the first act. As the ballet only makes dramatic sense in the opening Venusberg scene, he placed it there, or rather, merely extended the

14

MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELISABETH

PHILIPPE JORDAN

existing scene. (He did somewhat pro­ vocatively propose starting the opera later than usual, around 8 p.m., which the opera house was understandably not prepared to consider for a moment.)

The way that Wagner initially adopted existing traditions, only to gradually abandon them and develop new prac­ tices which he then built on, is par­ ticularly impressively shown in other examples in Tannhäuser. For example, the great crowd scenes, the tableau finales also seen in Verdi, such as the “Erbarm dich mein” (Grant me mercy) ensemble at the end of the second act – scenes where time simply stands still, clearly embracing the spirit of French grand opera, and gradually disappear­ ing. The classic four, eight and sixteen bar phrases which still appear in text­ book alignment with the verses in Tan­ nhäuser recall their counterparts in Carl Maria von Weber. However, in the Paris version these phrases start to overlap and dissolve. Conversely, both the a cappella pilgrims’ choruses and the re­ ligious element in the third act – espe­ cially in the prelude – point very clearly to Parsifal, which was composed 35 years later. The Venusberg crescendos, the frequent repetitions and sequences of motifs which appear in the Dresden version of Tannhäuser, can also be seen as a preliminary study for the Tristan crescendos. Tannhäuser also has an in­ novation in the third act which is inter­ esting in purely dramatic terms. Unlike Der fliegende Holländer, this act has for the first time the function of processing what has gone before, a type of stillness and transcendence which makes possi­ ble the subsequent summation and res­ olution. Wagner repeatedly returns to this idea in later works. Something else I find very exciting is a detail in the so-

called Rome narrative in the third act, a twist which suddenly recurs in Rhein­ gold. Tannhäuser’s words, repeating the Pope’s words to him, “Wie dieser Stab in meiner Hand” (As this staff in my hand), are sung in a different key, but the phrase is otherwise virtually identical to Alberich’s “Kein Froher soll sich seiner freun” (None shall have joy of its wealth). Clearly, Wagner had created a curse leitmotif for more than one piece. I wonder if he knew! All the above processes fundamentally involve a growing development of the leitmotif technique, which the increasing length of his works made necessary as a dra­ matic and musical link.

The figure of Wolfram, who basi­ cally is only marginally in the shade of the title figure, can also be seen as a harbinger of music drama ideas in Wagner’s late works. Tannhäuser is shown clearly as a type of anarchist, rebelling against society. However, the more I study the work, the less I consider him to be a genuine artistic genius. He certainly has talent and inspiration, as we see in the minstrel contest, where he has the only lively and inventive melody in comparison with the others. Tannhäuser undoubt­ edly owes this to his encounter with Venus, but he is unable to present this material in a form which allows him to create a real work of art. Wolfram is a different matter. Certainly, his entry in the minstrels’ contest is very lame, but it must be remembered that Wolfram is in a very difficult situa­ tion emotionally – he loves Elisabeth, but knows that he has no chance. And this is the mood in which he has to sing about love. Nothing really great can come of this, at least at this mo­ ment in the action. He finally achieves

16

TANNHÄUSER AS A DR A M A OF AN ARTIST

a true work of art in the third act with the song to the evening star. What is Wagner trying to say here? That em­ pathy matures through transcendence,

experience of suffering, and this can create something great. And this is al­ ready Parsifal purely transformed into artistry.

CLAY HILLEY as TANNHÄUSER EKATERINA GUBANOVA as VENUS

17

OLIVER LÁNG

THE LONG JOURNEY OF TANNHÄUSER APPROACHING A LEGEND

AND MAKING IT HIS OWN

Admittedly, the material wasn’t all that unusual in Wagner’s day. The Tann­ häuser myth, with all its variations and spin-offs, and the story of the minstrel contest at the Wartburg were popu­ lar reading in the first half of the 19th century, appearing in the most diverse recol­lections. Tannhäuser was a famil­ iar name, with a wealth of associations.

THE TANNHÄUSER MYTH Initially, there were two separate myth cycles, one centred on Tannhäuser and the other on the Wartburg minstrel contest. The outlines of the first can be dimly perceived in history. What we know: Tannhäuser was born around 1200, had noble origins, and among other things took part in the Fifth Crusade. He travelled widely through the mediaeval countries, ending as court poet to the last Babenberg Em­ peror, Frederick II (the Quarrelsome).

Then the scent becomes colder, and his history becomes vague. However, we can follow his works: several po­ ems have been preserved, showing

us a thoroughly secular troubadour.

Despite the lack of information about him, one thing is sure: his daring poetry soon made Tannhäuser a legend for re­ bellion and sensuality.

A 14th century miniature showing Tannhäuser has been preserved, and the legend gradually emerged in print, for example Das lyedt von dem Dan­ heuser (The Song of Tannhäuser), which appeared in 1521 with the Venusberg ex­ perience, the repudiation by the Pope, the greening of the papal crozier and a critical confrontation with the Pope’s denial of absolution.

His departure from Venus is not without difficulties in this version: Ve­ nus responds to his request to take leave of “your fair self” with a seductive sug­ gestion: Herr Danheuser nicht redet also Ir thuot euch nicht wol besinnen So gehen wir in ein kaemmerlein Und spilen der edlen minne.

My lord Tannhäuser, don’t say such things,

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THE LONG JOURNEY OF TANNHÄUSER

you’re not thinking!

Let’s go into the bedroom and play at courtly love.

The generous mood is shattered when the Pope condemns Tannhäuser, and since there is no forgiveness, Tann­ häuser returns to the Venusberg.

Accord­ing to the Tannhäuser song, as contained in Ludwig Bechstein’s 1858 book of Thuringian legends (which Wagner read), Pope Urban IV sends messengers after the miracle of the blossoming of his crozier, but they do not reach Tannhäuser.

THE MINSTREL CONTEST In parallel with this, there is the min­ strel contest at the Wartburg, which ap­ pears in the legends around 1205. The central external figure in this legend is Heinrich von Ofterdingen, who is contesting against Wolfram, Walther von der Vogelweide, Biterolf and Rein­ mar von Zweter. Rather than love, the contest is about who is the best ruler.

According to Ofterdingen, it is Duke Leopold of Austria, according to the other singers it is Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia. Ofterdingen loses, is to be decapitated and demands another judge, who is the Hungarian sorcerer, Klingsor. A riddle game follows be­ tween Wolfram and Klingsor, an ele­ ment of the action which has little to do with what went before. Tannhäuser is not mentioned in this part of the action.

The two myth cycles were caught up by German Romanticism, with a wealth of new interpretation and emphasis.

The authors tackling this subject were prominent: Ludwig Tieck told the story of the faithful Eckart and Tannen­ häuser in 1797, Novalis tackled Heinrich

von Ofterdingen in 1802, Tannhäuser appears in the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, the Brothers Grimm included the Tannhäuser song in their collection of German legends, E. T. A. Hoffmann revived the minstrel contest in the second volume of the Serapions­ brüder, and a few years later Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué dealt with the same story in Der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg. There is a piece by Christoph Kuffner entitled Die Meistersinger auf der Wartburg, Willibald Alexis wrote Venus in Rom, the opera Tannhäuser

by Carl Amand Mangold premièred in Darmstadt a year after Wagner’s piece, and Heinrich Heine wrote a famous ballad Der Tannhäuser. Christian Theo­ dor Leopold Lucas entered the story as an academic trying to reconcile the two cycles, arguing that Heinrich von Ofter­ dingen was Tannhäuser, and Wagner, who was familiar with the argument adopted this position.

ROMANTICISM Romanticism was responsible for the shift in the emphasis towards love and friendship, together with the central element of the Romantic lone wolf who is looking for their place, and the issue of being torn between different situa­ tions in life.”

The awkward conflict between a seduc­ tive physicality and a pure and spiritual love is in fact an important element in literary Romanticism, which mani­ fests itself in key features of the artis­ tic works of the period. Years before Wagner’s approach to the material, there was a small volume by Joseph von Eichendorff, Das Marmorbild (The marble statue), in which the poet Florio

19

OLIVER LÁNG

found himself between the two stools.

A captivating marble statue of Venus comes to life in a cursed garden, and confronts the inexperienced male pro­ tagonist with a world which his actual love, the virginal and tender Bianca, cannot match. Dangerous magic is nat­ urally included. Then there is Ludwig Tieck’s even earlier 1795 masterpiece William Lovell. The protagonist stead­ ily slides into the search for his identity, torments himself with self-discovery which soon appears as obsession with self and frenzied candour. He repeatedly encounters female opposites, and main­ tains a balance between sensuality and spirituality, although this never makes him entirely happy. At times, both are reflected in a single person – “purity” and desire, willingness to sacrifice and death.

RICHARD WAGNER The elements were accordingly avail­ able to Wagner at the start of the 1840s when he began work on Tannhäuser.

The focus on the Middle Ages was not new to Romanticism or the times, but apart from the fashionable aspect Wag­ ner felt (as he was to do more strongly later) that setting his story in a shad­ owy, remote mediaeval period would give the character greater strength and universality– the force of legend, even if Wagner modified it. We can assume that Wagner was familiar with a great deal of public awareness of Tannhäuser, even if he only mentioned parts of this in his biographical writings, for exam­ ple in his autobiography Mein Leben (My Life), where he referred to the faithful Eckart, the minstrel contest, Lucas’s work and the Brothers Grimm collec­ tion of legends. He decided to merge the

two myth cycles, gave prominence to Elisabeth and brought in her sacrifice.

Initially, however, Wagner was still an impoverished composer, unrecog­ nised, unmarked by success, who was failing in the operatic capital of Europe – Paris. He wrote and arranged and endured hardship until at last he learned that his opera Rienzi was to be premièred in Dresden. Wagner later for­ got the considerable part played in this

by Giacomo Meyerbeer, who supported him and recommended Rienzi to Dres­ den, and treated Meyerbeer with great disdain.

Wagner completed the first prose draft of Tannhäuser in June 1842. As with all his works, he tells a story of how the piece originated. For exam­ ple, “Here I took the fancy of engaging quarters for several days on the roman­ tic Schreckenstein near Aussig, where I stayed in a little room. I found recrea­ tion in daily ascents of the Wostrai, the highest peak in the neighbourhood, and so keenly did the fantastic solitude quicken my youthful spirit, that I clam­ bered about the ruins of the Schrecken­ stein the whole of one moonlit night, wrapped only in a blanket, in order to supply the missing ghost, delighted by the prospect of scaring some passer-by.

Here I drew up in my pocketbook the detailed plan of a three-act opera Ve­ nusberg and subsequently wrote the verse version in strict accordance with this. When climbing the Wostrai, I was astonished, on turning the corner of a valley, to hear a merry dance tune whis­ tled by a goatherd perched on a crag.

I felt immediately transported to a cho­ rus of pilgrims filing past the goatherd in the valley; but I could not afterwards recall the goatherd’s tune, so I was obliged to create it myself in the usual

20

THE LONG JOURNEY OF TANNHÄUSER

way.” Or “The sight of this mountain fastness, which, from the Fulda side, is clearly visible for a long time, affected me deeply. A ridge to the side I at once christened the Horselberg, and contin­ uing through the valley I imagined the scenery as the setting for the third act of my Tannhäuser.”

Much of the detail of Tannhäuser ad­ mittedly stems from a significantly ear­ lier period in Wagner’s life. For example, the 19-year-old Wagner wrote an impas­ sioned address to the evening star in a love letter to the young Countess Jenny Pachta. “Dusk had fallen, I was sitting

by Jenny at the piano, and I saw the evening star shining on me. I rushed to my room and improvised on the piano – I’ve written it down now, and I think it’s good.”

In any case, in 1842 Wagner aban­ doned his draft for an opera Die Sara­ zenin (The Saracen Woman) and de­ voted himself to Tannhäuser. He started work on the composition in 1843 and completed it provisionally in April 1845.

The famous change of the title from Der Venusberg to Tannhäuser was made on the advice of his publisher, who said medical students were making fun of it.

The world première, conducted by Wagner in Dresden on 19 October 1845, was not particularly successful, and struggled with problems; for example,

the sets were not finished (instead of the minstrel hall, they had to use the impe­ rial hall from Carl Maria von Weber’s Oberon) and passages were cut from the title role. Even so, the prominent music critic Eduard Hanslick was largely pos­ itive in his appraisal of the opera. Sev­ eral small revisions were followed by the major 1860/61 revision, when the work was presented at the Paris Opéra with the support of Princess Pauline Metter­ nich.

This was associated with the fa­ mous story of the Paris Tannhäuser scandal, created by the Jockey Club. The members were used to arriving at the opera for the start of the second act, and wanted to see a ballet then, in line with the French custom. Wagner refused to follow the convention, despite numer­ ous appeals, and instead gave the opera the Bacchanal in the first act. The result­ ing protests have gone down in operatic history.

Further changes followed, with dele­ tions and modifications, leading to an­ other version – the Vienna version, not presented until 1875. Wagner’s famous utterance, “I still owe the world a Tann­ häuser”, as reported by Cosima Wagner, has also gone down in musical history, as artists still grapple with questions about an ideal version with every Tann­ häuser première.

Following pages: SCENE

ANDREAS LÁNG

OMNI PRESENT IN VIENNA Difficult as it may be to believe, Wag­ ner‘s music was first heard in public in Vienna, in the Volksgarten, and under the baton of Johann Strauss. At that soiree on 28 March 1853 – a truly memorable date for Wagnerians – the Waltz King’s orchestra performed a programme that included an arrange­ ment of the “Pilgrims” Chorus’ from Tannhäuser. Thanks to the exuberant response, the orchestra kept the piece in their repertoire from then on.

Although various theatre directors in the Austrian imperial city had pre­ viously tried to obtain performance rights for Rienzi, Lohengrin and also Tannhäuser, these works had never been performed there, for a variety of rea­ sons. Those living within the borders of present-day Austria who wanted to ex­ perience Tannhäuser in its entirety were able to do so for the first time in 1854 in Graz. In Vienna itself, it was not until three years later that Wagner‘s grand romantic opera was finally staged, on 28 August 1857. But as so often happens with the première of a milestone in mu­

sical theatre, this performance did not take place at the city’s leading theatre, i.e. the “venerable” Court Opera, but on a summer stage – yes, there was already summer theatre back then – at the socalled Thalia Theatre.

This wooden venue, long-since demolished, was located in the 16th district, where today the Gürtel and Thaliastrasse (named after this theatre) intersect. It served as a temporary venue for the Theater in der Josefstadt during the summer months. Despite some neg­ ative newspaper reviews, the enormous success of Tannhäuser is evidenced by the fact that Tannhäuser moved to the primary theatre, the Theater in der Jo­ sefstadt, that same autumn. But despite obvious interest on the part of the pub­ lic, the Court Opera continued to hesi­ tate; by then, a Tannhäuser parody writ­ ten by Johann Nestroy and Carl Binder had become a crowd-puller at Vienna’s Carl Theatre. Only once Lohengrin had proved successful at the Court Opera did things finally change, and Tann­ häuser was included in the season at the

24

OMNIPRESENT IN VIENNA

city‘s most important musical theatre venue from 19 November 1859 – albeit with cuts and distortions resulting from censorship.

For example, since the word “Rome” as the hub of Christianity could not be mentioned on the Court Opera stage, the two lines in the dialogue between Wolfram and Tannhäuser in the third act, “Did you not go to Rome?” and “Do not speak to me of Rome” had to be changed to “Were you not there?” and “Do not speak to me of that place.“ At all events, while in Vienna in 1861 Rich­ ard Wagner refused to attend a perfor­ mance of Tannhäuser that included these changes.

In 1869, with the opening of the large, newly built opera house on the Ring – today’s Vienna State Opera – a new chapter began in the cultivation of Wagner, particularly in the perfor­ mance history of Tannhäuser. Within just a few years (1870-1875), the opera was performed no fewer than 46 times.

The great capstone was a new staging and musical production in November 1875, which Richard Wagner directed himself, at least in part. And even if, as Cosima Wagner noted in her diary, “nothing was as R. really intended” at the première, its success seems to have been overwhelming. Incidentally, the so-called Viennese version of Tann­ häuser, a modified version of the 1861 Paris version, was then performed for the first time. However, no sooner had Wagner left Vienna than the decision was made to return to the earlier Dres­ den version and also to gradually re­ introduce the staging with the earlier cuts.

It was Gustav Mahler who first put an end to this mania for cuts, but at the same time he made slight changes to the

instrumentation, which were not nec­ essarily well received. In the following decades, several new productions fol­ lowed – almost every new director put on a new Tannhäuser, switching con­ stantly between the Dresden and Vi­ ennese versions. In 1909, director Felix von Weingartner opted for a new pro­ duction of the Dresden version, director Hans Gregor then switched back to the Viennese version in 1913, and under the dual direction of Richard Strauss and Franz Schalk this version was retained.

No sooner had Strauss stepped down than Franz Schalk went back to the Dresden Tannhäuser, and a new pro­ duction of the Paris version followed in the second Weingartner era. One thing was however undisputed: after Lohen­ grin and The Flying Dutchman, Tann­ häuser was easily the most popular and most frequently performed Wagner opera in Vienna. Even in the ten years between 1945 and 1955, when the State Opera facility could not be used due to damage resulting from the war and al­ ternative venues had to be found, Tann­ häuser remained on the schedule, and the State Opera performed the work no fewer than 65 times at what is now the Volksoper.

And since the reopening of the house on the Ring, there have been no fewer than four new productions – in 1956 under Rudolf Moralt and directed

by Josef Gielen (Vienna version), in 1963 under the overall direction of Herbert von Karajan (Vienna version), in 1982 under Lorin Maazel in Otto Schenk’s production (Vienna version), and in 2010 (once again in the Dresden ver­ sion) under Franz Welser-Möst in Claus Guth’s production. We should also not forget three new productions at what is now the Volksoper: in 1906, under

25

OMNIPRESENT IN VIENNA

the musical direction of Alexander von Zemlinsky, in 1932, and in 1935.

Naturally Tannhäuser has not al­ ways been spared the ups and downs typical of theatre and the inevitable incidents that accompany them. For ex­ ample, on 7 October 1870, looking to in­ crease their fee, the chorus did not sing in the performance, but dispensed with the text and simply hummed the notes.

And at the 1982 première, there was an embarrassing situation when the tenor singing the title role, Reiner Goldberg, left the performance shortly after his first appearance due to an ailment and

had to be replaced by his colleague Spas Wenkoff; some opera-goers may still re­ member this incident.

After a surprisingly long spell of eleven years without Tannhäuser, the current production premièred on 22 May 2025, this time again with the Viennese version (see also page 12).

Under Philippe Jordan and in a pro­ duction by Lydia Steier, the American heldentenor Clay Hilley sang the title role, Malin Byström sang Elisabeth, Ekaterina Gubanova was Venus, Mar­ tin Gantner was Wolfram, and Günther Groissböck was Landgrave Hermann.

26

EKATERINA GUBANOVA as VENUS

CLAY HILLEY as TANNHÄUSER

ANDREAS LÁNG IN CONVERSATION WITH SET DESIGNER MOMME HINRICHS & COSTUME DESIGNER ALFRED MAYERHOFER

THE

TRIPTYCH OF ARTWORK DEVELOPMENT al

The set and costume designs for this production of Tannhäuser need no explanation. Nevertheless, we would like to share some of the ideas that went into the design of this production.

The first question is: what were your very first ideas, and to what extent were you involved in developing the concepts at an early stage? mh Before Lydia agrees to direct a play, she gives careful consideration to the question of why she should stage the work in question at that particular mo­ ment. She looks for a dimension that is of interest to her, the significance of the work’s dramaturgy, and a correlation that makes for a good narrative. In this case, one source of inspiration was the American film Babylon, and with it the very particular free, unrestrained and orgiastic atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties. Lydia could see Venusberg in this setting and, from this starting point further develop the direction for the entire production. And thatʼs where we came in.

am At first, it was more a perception than a fully developed, specific setting that Lydia proposed to kick-start our joint interpretative discussion. This is how things have worked in all the pro­ ductions that we have collaborated on to date. Lydia suggests moods, images, and situations that clarify the direc­ tion we want to take, and then we can begin our in-depth research; to this, Lydia adds the overarching, unifying ideas. The beauty of her work is that she always identifies at least one other additional layer in the story being told, behind every stage character. Coming up with ways to visualise this is enor­ mously gratifying. mh Lydia always encourages artistic exchange within the team. She can in­ spire us with her ideas, but in turn she is also inspired by ours. And at some point in this discovery process, a kind of guideline emerges that everyone can then identify with. am At all events, we always see a great deal of broad trust in this collaboration, because sometimes time and practical constraints force Momme and me to

28

THE TRIPTYCH OF ARTWORK DEVELOPMENT

move ahead with certain aspects. For example, if the costume workshops are to begin their work on time, they need the initial specific drafts from me quite quickly – even before the production has been finalised. On the other hand, these drafts can also generate new ideas for the overall concept in Lydia. al So what do we see when the curtain rises for the first act? mh A tremendous, uninhibited, or­ giastic scene. It surges from left and right, from above and below – and fi­ nally, Venus floats down on a glitter­ ing crescent moon. The space with the grand staircase where all this takes place is clearly inspired by the ostenta­ tious architecture of the hotel lobby in the aforementioned film Babylon, with its excessive blend of styles and unpar­ alleled level of kitsch. am It was important to me to show a true pot-pourri of individuality in a kind of safe space where everyone can express themselves as they wish.

Colour­ful and diverse. The inspiration for this was, among other things, an ex­ hibition at the Berlin National Gallery which had captured precisely this mood and the artistic leanings of the Weimar Republic in the performance of a vari­ ety show. Accordingly, my aim was to give each individual their own, unique biography conveyed through their out­ fit. This resulted in around 170 different costumes, which communicate authen­ ticity within the diverse crowd, from hair colour and choice of fabric to the buttons, ribbons, and make-up. al A true costume design. am Meticulously composed. Every colour nuance, every single costume element has its place and finds its ap­ propriate antithesis. If one detail were removed from this whole, it would be,

if not definable, at least subconsciously disturbing to the audience. al So the Venusberg setting in the 1920s was the starting point.

How did you come up with the other places and times on which this production is based? mh We soon we became interested in considering the whole thing from the perspective of art. After all, there is also a constant interchange between love and passion in art. And so, looking at the historical development, it was easy to see an equivalent in the 1930s and early 1940s for the conservative world of Wartburg seen in the second act. The great awakening was followed by re­ strictions, dictatorship, and the tar­geted suppression of all freedom. We did not want to show readily identifiable Nazi symbols on the stage, but merely indicate the spirit that hides the wild dance, the furious whirl of life that can appear men­ acingly on the horizon at any time. This becomes apparent in the second act, on the one hand through the stylised Albert Speer architecture, into which we inte­ grated a scene from a Tann­häuser pro­ duction also seen in Vienna in 1938, and on the other hand through a completely different repertoire of movement and demeanour on the part of the actors.

The wild, seemingly disorderly nature of the first act is contrasted with an ex­ tremely stylised mode of walking, sit­ ting, watching, etc. in the second act. al The reference to the scene from 1938 refers to the actual singing competition? mh Correct. Lydia and I had found a photo of a scene from that period at the Austrian Theatre Museum; this is re­ vived here as an extremely traditionallooking stage decoration for the singers performing. If you like, a staged Asterix

29

MOMME HINRICHS & ALFRED MAYERHOFER

and Obelix reality, taken seriously by the actors... am ...a ritualistic pseudo-historicity, also evidenced by the costumes in this competition. al And apart from the singing competition? How do the costumes in the second act reflect the aforementioned stylised walking, sitting, and watching? am What kind of society do we have here? So-called good society, which functions within narrowly defined conventions and denies itself and others all the things it would in real­ ity like to experience. People know how to behave, how to dress for certain occasions. The costumes appear corre­ spondingly uniform – albeit with some deliberate variations: the ladies wear high-necked evening gowns, the men wear tailcoats and uniforms. And since I enjoy working with evocative colours, beige and grey tones primarily empha­ sise the prevailing staid attitude, which creating a strong contrast to the colour­ fulness of the first act. Incidentally, this also applies to Elisabeth as a member of this society – but at least she is permitted a colour, the violet of her evening dress, that definitively sets her apart from the others. al In all acts, a large portal arch dominates the various stage sets as a constant. Is that also a quote? mh We actually love incorporating different quotes into our collaborative work. In this Tannhäuser, there are sev­ eral – for example, the VW bus from Tobias Kratzerʼs Bayreuth Tannhäuser.

Or this portal arch, which is in part borrowed from the TV series Stargate.

It functions as a connecting element through the different time periods we see in the three acts.

al

In the third act, we have reached the second half of the 20th century – or even later. Why is that? mh In the theatre, there is a pact with the audience that they accept what they are seeing as reality. That’s exactly what weʼre playing with here. We destroy the illusion by showing the scenery – in this case, elements of the first and second acts – as such, from behind, from a backstage perspective. It must be made clear that we can no longer start where we were before the dictatorship, before the restrictions. This illusion is shattered – and this is symbolised by the setting in the third act... am ...in which everyone is just staring at their televisions and screens, hoping for some form of salvation. But this can only happen individually, which hardly anyone understands. Thatʼs why, in the third act, I show everyone in an unkempt state. Still in the costumes of the second act – but unkempt nonetheless. What unites them is this interminable waiting. mh Which is also reflected in the art.

Ultimately, with this production, we are also showing the triptych of artistic development, which constantly repeats itself like waves: after free, unhindered development, there follows a counterattack, and this, the lack of illusions. al But the illusion is not dead. mh At the very last moment, in the fi­ nal scene, it is revived. After all, we all need the magic. And so, with us too, it returns to the stage, buoyed up by this wonderful music. am At the end, things seem to come full circle. Elisabeth has traded her pur­ ple dress for a white one, something sacred seems to have moved in and, as in a dream, at least the hope of personal redemption remains.

30

MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELISABETH

JONATHAN DOVE

THANK YOU, RICHARD WAGNER! Dear Richard, Forgive the informality: we’ve never met, but you and especially your music have been such a big and influential part of my life for so many years, I think of you as a mentor. Before I even dreamed of writing operas myself, I came under your spell. As a student, I spent days poring over the score of Tristan und Isolde, trying to fathom how you had worked your magic. I marvelled at the way a simple motif, a fragment of mel­ ody, could evolve and develop, motifs could combine into immense outpourings. I listened to Der Ring des Nibelungen in instalments on gramophone records, and when, one morning, I came to the end of Götterdämmerung – the music of the Rhine pouring over the music of Valhalla, while a new descant, heard only once before, floated over it all – the sheer beauty over­ whelmed me and I was reduced to tears.

Parsifal was next: I loved to play the walk to the Grail Castle on the piano, with special emphasis on the suf­ fering of Amfortas, passionately pounding out the same passage over and over again (to the consterna­ tion of my neighbours). I was transfixed by the sub­ lime Good Friday music and the grave prelude to Act Three, and I was in awe of the way you transformed your themes: how you could suggest the weight of Par­ sifal’s experience simply by putting his fanfare into the minor key, with some sombre chromatic movement in

32

T H A N K YO U, R IC H A R D WAG N E R !

the bass. That simple yet startling transformation has always haunted me. Some fellow students explored the world of your ideas through books, and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer along with your own writings. I preferred just to engage with your music, the notes themselves. I saved up for tickets to attend perfor­ mances, often finding that I preferred the production in my head to the one on stage, but always relishing the musical journey.

When I turned thirty, cocky and reckless after com­ pleting my own first full-length opera, I agreed to make a reduced orchestration of your Ring cycle, for a touring opera company with a chamber orchestra of 18 players, and even to shorten each opera of the te­ tralogy to half its length. (Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!) That must sound barbaric to you, sacri­ legious perhaps. But people who live in small towns without a theatre, or could never afford to visit a major opera house, deserve to have at least a taste of your immense creation. And what an education for me that was! I spent a thousand hours transcribing ten hours of your music, considering every note, and trying to capture the essence of the sounds with far fewer in­ struments.

Perhaps the most surprising lesson was your gift for instrumental colour, always knowing exactly the right sound for a situation, a character, an idea. I had always associated you with a great mass of sound, a vast or­ chestra. But you showed me that the weight of sound matters less than the precise timbre. All the ways you use the horn, for instance: the difference between the heroic open horn call, the treacherous muted horns of the Tarnhelm, the angry buzzing of the stopped horn that leads up to Alberich’s curse. You use the timbre to convey meaning. Using a much smaller orchestra to recreate your sound-worlds, I discovered that it was always vital to have the right sound in the foreground: the sound-colours were doing so much storytelling, painting the picture. I hadn’t realised how powerful a tool that is. I carried that lesson into my own work, along with others.

I had previously thought that opera was simply people singing their feelings. But you showed me that music can flow from everything in a story: not only human feelings, dramatic situations, but anything with sig­

33

JONATHAN DOVE

nificance – a river, a forest, a raven, a sword, a ring.

Each needs its own instrumental colours, as well as its own distinctive harmonies, its characteristic rhythm and melody.

Something I could never imitate is your ability to capture a world of feeling in a handful of notes. It’s mirac­ulous how, in the last scene of Die Walküre, just by transposing one or notes up an octave, you can invest a descending minor scale with all the pathos of Brunn­h ilde’s plea to her father, and then just by changing that scale to the major, convey her glorious love for Siegmund.

So often, you are working with the most basic build­ ing blocks of music, fusing them to crucial elements in the narrative. With a single dotted rhythm, a scale becomes a spear; with more dotted rhythms, an arpeg­ gio becomes a sword. The harmonic series, the funda­ mental musical vibration, becomes the source of life.

You know that, to tell a story, you need dramatic con­ trast. And you always know where to put the contrast.

The simplest contrasts are often the most effective.

You get extraordinary mileage out of the contrast be­ tween chromatic and diatonic. I’ve noticed you use this differently in different operas. In Tannhäuser and Parsifal, diatonic music signifies the sacred, the pious, while chromatic evokes the profane, the sensual. In Tristan und Isolde, the outer world is diatonic, straight­ forward, familiar, while the inner world is chromatic, endlessly fluid and evolving, moving towards the un­ known. In Der Ring, some human elements are simply diatonic, but the darker elements in the story are chro­ matically distorted, while Nature is beyond diatonic: a single essential undulating harmony supporting the folk-like pentatonic melodies of the Rhinemaidens or the Woodbird. The way you conjure up the natural world is something I’ve never forgotten, and never es­ caped: I always want to suggest trees or a river or the sky with the notes of the harmonic series, and with pentatonic harmonies.

By using such strong, elemental, instantly memorable material, and varying and developing it as the story develops, you can carry an audience with you on a huge journey. You elaborate on your motifs, remind us of others, weave them together, and we can always follow you. You weave the entire musical fabric out of

34

T H A N K YO U, R IC H A R D WAG N E R !

these essential elements. The music is fused into the narrative, and the drama creates new music.

This, for me, is the great ideal, to which I always aspire and which I never fully attain. Even though I want to tell very different stories from yours, and more rapidly, with a different kind of singing, your example is al­ ways in front of me, and remains my dream: the fusion of music and drama. I’ve learned more about this from you than from anybody. No one has ever done it better than you.

Because you get the smallest details right, you can build enormous edifices of sound with complete cer­ tainty. And you know when to repeat a big set-piece, perhaps magnifying it, or gilding it. You might say that’s one of your calling-cards. You have always known how to get the most out of repetition.

You show us this right at the beginning of Tannhäuser.

You start the overture quietly with a simple, solemn chorale; then, after a penitential interlude, you bring it back, but now fortissimo, with a magnificent embel­ lishment of violin cascades. It’s thrilling! (And it will be even grander when it comes back at the beginning and end of the last act of the opera, with the chorus singing for all they are worth.) Without pausing for breath, you then carry us off to another completely different realm, somewhere magical and intensely alive. It’s the Venusberg, where the music surges and spins and makes us giddy. An exuberant melody keeps bursting out of the intoxicating turmoil: it will become Tannhäuser’s song of praise for Venus.

The music for Venus herself is amazing. You wrote this romantic opera before developing all those daz­ zling storytelling techniques to create music drama in Der Ring. But when you reworked Tannhäuser after writing Tristan und Isolde, you used everything you had discovered about writing music of sensual love, music of longing and yearning. Delicious, unresolved, ambiguous harmonies pushing irresistibly onwards, swelling and flowing over pedal points and never reaching a perfect cadence. We lose our sense of the passage of time, as does Tannhäuser. This isn’t exactly a criticism, Richard, but I wonder if maybe you have done this too well? Is the allure of the goddess and her grotto too successful? It is irresistible. Who would want to leave the place that holds such music? Back

35

JONATHAN DOVE

in the world of piety, there will be nothing to equal it. It will be impossible for Elisabeth to compete. We really feel the wrench of Tannhäuser tearing himself away, with fierce discords just before the music sub­ sides to the pastoral sounds of a shepherd and his pipe in Scene Three.

At first, the diatonic simplicity of the pilgrims chorale is refreshing and welcome after the intoxicating chro­ maticism of Venusberg. Although it’s interesting that, upon meeting the pilgrims, Tannhäuser praises God with a minor chord. Is he already regretting leaving Venusberg?

And now something very arresting: groups of horns, a dozen in all, calling to each other in the distance and coming nearer. But with the arrival of the landgrave and Wolfram in Scene Four we are into a more conven­ tional world of straightforward tonality and regular phrases. The mention of Elisabeth transports Tann­ häuser, and Wolfram sings about her with charming sincerity, but the music doesn’t “take off” in anything like the way it did around Venus. We really are in an­ other world – a less exciting one. When Tannhäuser asks to be taken to Elisabeth, his music feels like a longing for safety, after the dangerous thrills of his adventure. No more leaps into the unknown.

Now we meet Elisabeth: we are touched by her joy at the return of her beloved, and she sings something graceful, beautiful. But is it just me, or are we longing for some musical fireworks, especially when she is re­ united with Tannhäuser? The earthbound tonic-dom­ inant predictability of their duet is such a long way from the ecstatic levitation you conjured up for Tann­ häuser’s experiences with Venus, it makes us feel that this happiness is doomed. (In fact, when you wrote this duet, were you remembering Fidelio? I’m sure you conducted Beethoven’s opera, and I hear an echo of “O namenlose Freude.”)

A grand march saves the day. You have always been brilliant at these, Richard, and this one has an en­ chanting elegance and lightness to balance the majes­ tic fanfares, as all the guests arrive for the song con­ test. The sense of occasion is splendid and uplifting.

The harp accompaniment to Wolfram’s song doesn’t contain any harmonic surprises, but it shouldn’t: his earnest, conventional piety contrasts wonderfully

36

T H A N K YO U, R IC H A R D WAG N E R !

with the memories of Venusberg we hear rising up in Tannhäuser. Of course he won’t be able to help him­ self: his song of praise for Venus will burst out of him, forcing the music upwards and bringing down outrage on his head.

And now Elisabeth comes into her own. Her interces­ sion builds into my favourite music in the opera. The harmony remains within her pious world, but her pas­ sion gives birth to a compelling melody “Ich fleh’ für ihn, ich flehe für sein Leben” which is then taken up by the knights, while Tannhäuser’s remorse rises to a new intensity, and all the voices combine in a power­ ful climax. The first time I heard this in the theatre, I found it shattering, and rushed home to play it over and over again on the piano. Even today, it feels like a revelation that I can’t explain. If the rest of the opera is never less than the work of a master-dramatist, this ensemble, like the Venusberg music, gives us a taste of the inexplicable genius that would radiate through all your work after Lohengrin.

This passage makes your most persuasive case for virtue. However, overall, I’m not sure I’m completely convinced by your presentation of the pious world in this opera. Apart from the thrilling Pilgrims’ Cho­ rus, I’m not sure your heart is always in it. I think you made the sacred more appealing, and perhaps more convincing, in Parsifal. Here, the profane and sensual wins hands down, which perhaps makes Tannhäus­ er’s eventual spiritual redemption a little hollow. Is this why you were never satisfied with Tannhäuser? It certainly hasn’t stopped the world enjoying it!

I don’t mean to sound critical. What I really want to say is: Thank You, for your creations, and for showing us what is possible. If I have been lucky to see and hear so many different productions of my own operas, it is thanks, in no small degree, to what I have learned from you. Doing my best to connect music and drama has enabled me to tell stories in an involving way, which shows that even the least of us can learn from a master. I can never thank you enough, Richard, for all your inspiration!

Yours affectionately, Jonathan

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Following pages: SCENE

IMPRINT R IC H A R D WAGN E R

TANNHÄUSER SEASON 2024/25 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 22 MAY 2025 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU ARTICLE ORIGINATION Interview with Lydia Steier: A rockstar on tour – Philippe Jordan: Tannhäuser as Drama of an Artist – Oliver Láng: The long journey of Tannhäuser – Andreas Láng: Omnipresent in Vienna – interview with Momme Hinrichs and Alfred Mayerhofer: The triptych of artwork develop­ ment – Jonathan Dove: Thank you, Richard Wagner! IMAGE REFERENCES Cover image: Luka Khabelashvili – www.lukakhabelashvili.com. Cover image concept: Martin Conrads, Berlin. Performance photos: Michael Pöhn/Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (p 10-11, 17, 31) Ashley Taylor (p 2-3, 15, 22-23, 27, 38) ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS A rockstar on tour: David Tushingham; all others: Andrew Smith.

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

produced according to the Austrian Ecolabel criteria for printed matter (Uz24), Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH, UW-NR 715

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