Tannhauser MUPA Wagner Days Budapest
June 17th 2018
I think I am beginning to feel that Tannhauser is a strange work; I have only very recently truly come to terms with it, largely through seeing performances on stage (Berlin, the review of which ash been posted on here) and now this one. I think its effectiveness is as much dependent on the nature of the t=staging as the music itself and the performances. The conductor is vital to ensure that the longeurs (of which there are a number I think, particularly in the first act) are not intolerable but the nature of the production is central; in Berlin as I said, the effectiveness of the whole performance was, in my view, necessarily dependent on those aspects.
The first act (it was all modern dress by the way) was both effective, intriguing and somewhat puzzling from this point of view. The stage had simple a vivid red sofa on it. This colour was clearly associated with Venus (the stunning and superb Sophie Koch; wow, what a singer and great stage presence!) who throughout wore a striking evening dress in the same colour. Interestingly, early on in her appearance, Elizabeth had a hint of red on her dress too – but not in the final act. The performance by Tundie Szaboki was a very fine one; she had the power and sweetness necessary for this role. Round the edges of the stage was a transparent scrim on which video images were sometimes projected (see Tristan review for my views on the use of video film/images in opera today!). This gave an effective sense of Tannhauser’s separation form the ‘real’ world and it collapsed/was pulled down at the moment he left the Venusberg (effective if a little obvious).
The subsequent scene with the Shepherd was oddly intriguing and I have not yet worked out what the producer was trying to do/say. The boy singer stood one side at the front while performing and then remained there still and silent once finished. But the instrumentalist (the English horn) who accompanies this also came onto stage (in normal orchestral dress) and there was also a doppelganger of the singer who interacted with the instrumentalist! Was it a Brechtian ‘alienation’ effect? The latter part of the act from a staging and musical point of view, is one of the weakest parts I feel but here there was some degree of movement and interaction between the characters and their plot-heavy narrations to each other. More so than in Berlin, thankfully.
Act 2 with the singing contest was SUPERB! The contest was imaginatively staged with excellent reactions and interactions from the very large numbers on stage and the whole contest was really vivid and engrossing. The modern dress was particularly effective with the ‘heralds’ being very smart, tight-skirted PR ‘gels’, very formally choreographed who greeted and guided the guests (all in dark formal suits or dresses)as they arrived. Tannhauser was the only one with a hint of colour - a dark red buttonhole. This was a neatly effective symbolic statement. The only slight flaw was the they brought the (vast) numbers on to stage from both sides of the stage and from the back of the theatre – in itself an imaginative use of space but ALL then crossed on stage, under the guidance of the ‘heralds’. Because of the numbers this just made it look messy; it would have bene better to have say half of those who entered on Stage Right remain there (and likewise for Stage Left, rather than having the crowded traffic (necessarily pushed to the front of the stage) that we saw. But this is a very minor, picky point.
Act 3 maintained the standard, musically and dramatically. The chorus was superb (they have got to be for this) and the positioning of a brass group high above the stage was thrilling (this in Act 2 as well as Act 3). The Rome narration was stunningly powerful as this was the crowning glory of the superb performance of the exceptional Stephen Gould- sweet-voiced, with unforced power and superbly sustained throughout the evening. The Narration voice was as fresh as when he started.
So, a wonderful performance that did superb justice to the piece – and it goes without saying now that the chorus, orchestra and conductor were equally key elements in the success of the evening.
So that was Wagner Nights 2018 (this was the final performance; now the Ring cycle – for which I have already got my tickets – I have learnt from last year when I could only get tix for two parts!