Wagner’s Tannhauser is about a (young) man’s struggle for ‘salvation’: he’s the 19th Century Wanderer, can’t find no satisfaction, no way home. Competing for his soul are “Venus”, whose ‘Venusberg‘ is a world of parties, orgies, pleasure-seeking without consequences. Her ‘rival’, and representing a fixed morality is Elisabeth; of a solid, respectable ‘burger‘ family of landed gentry. Steadfast, her loyalty to Tannhauser is immutable, supporting her man, the socially ostracized Tannhauser. The search for enlightenment exhausts Tannhauser, which takes him to ‘Rome’, and rejection from the Church.

Wagner’s music is both sensuous and spiritual- the free-thinking composer anything-but puritanical, and the characters- this is opera!- vividly-drawn, credible in their human failings. Tannhauser takes the form of an ‘Odyssey’, but composed in the religious-minded 19th Century, the dissolute will inevitably find the religious path, although the message is not strictly Christian.

Recent Vienna productions, (Mielitz), have posited the anti-hero in modern terms, undergoing a nervous breakdown. So Mielitz’s takes place in Vienna’s Otto Wagner Sanitorium, the action in Secession-style wards

Now, Crazy! It’s party time at Vienna State Opera. In Lydia Steier’s production, the stage could be now, not early 19th century, but contemporary 21st. They are boogying to Wagner’s Tannhauser overture (played immaculately by Vienna State Opera orchestra, conductor Axel Kobel.) The dancers, modern, are Vienna State Ballet’s. Very mixed race, black, Asian. Wild performers, even a somersault! The set, two iron circular staircases, baroque windows, could be a castle, for this rave, and orgy. Some of the partygoers are having sex.

Tannhauser, acclaimed American heldentenor Clay Hilley, in formal black deejay and white shirt, is disdainful, yet takes part. He pushes away one very raunchy lady, in this sex circus. Above the stage are no less than two trapeze artistes, (those I could see.) The dancers below are surging to modern, choreography. This is the VENUSBERG MUSIC, Venusberg the domain for pleasure seekers.

Hilley’s Tannhauser steps over a pile of grey bodies. Now the glamorous blonde with an enormous head piece,(Ekatarina Gubanova) is homing on Hilley, clinching him in her embrace, legs in incisor movements. He can’t measure how long he’s been there. Venusberg is also a state of mind, “where love’s glowing embrace will satisfy your desire”. Hilley, short, squat, is dwarfed by (another) dancer with an enormous headpiece.

Could it be that Wagner’s sublime music, indeed the whole opera, needs to be rejigged for modern audiences? No, in fairness, these wild scenes are staged over the long overture, and the Venusberg music is played unexpurgated.

Venus (mezzo-soprano Gubenova) reproaches Tannhauser, he the party-pooper. ‘What foolish complaint is this’: Have you forgotten how you suffered; now so joyful,’ she upbraids him. ‘Take up your harp. You won the goddess of love (Venus) herself.’
Tannhauser, for all his spiritual self-doubt, has yearned for ‘pleasure’. He’s only mortal, and overwhelmed by her, Venus representing woman, and sexual gratification. But, he sings, he must flee from her realm. She reminds him of the rapture he enjoyed. – What is his reproach? – Yet he longs for woodlands, nature. He must leave! Hilley’s Tannhauser we see in the dimly-lit back of stage; in an alcove, a woman’s arms fondling him in her embrace.

Goddess, let me go! She, Venus, accuses him of betraying her. Traitor! I set you free! He lies in the twilight. Venus, furious, curses him, ‘May a curse be on the world if he doesn’t return. Rest will never be thy lot. Never happy contentment.’ In the high feast of lent (self-denial) he will find redemption.

Just when you thought the party would never end…Act Two in the cafe/restaurant of the Landgrave, traditionally furnished, waiters in their blue uniforms attending. Elisabeth, the Landgrave’s niece, Camilla Nylund in a silky purple gown, greets the Hall where she first met Tannhauser (Hallenarie). Nylund appeals to him, ‘Help me follow the rhythms of my own heart. When you left me, my joy was shattered.’ Nylund’s consummate soprano is the devoted woman who sacrifices her life for Tannhauser’s rocky spiritual journey. Her heartfelt performance is a highlight of this production.
Perhaps surprisingly, Tannhauser and Elisabeth, long-parted, kiss and get very amorous. The Landgrave (Georg Zeppenfeld), a sensitive performance, observes them; (does she want to confide in him?)

At the Wartburg, we come to a Song Contest that Landgrave Herrmann arranges on the subject of love. (He who would win the hand of his niece Elisabeth must sing for her.) Of various characters, the lyrical Wolfram, (Ludovic Tezier),Tannhauser’s rival and friend, sings the iconic O du mein holder Abendstern. The comradely atmosphere, espousing chaste, platonic values, is disrupted by Tannhauser’s passionate declaration of love. He sings, he can never approach the song without a burning desire. Again Wolfram cautions, ‘If you refresh from the fountain (of love), you must refresh the soul.’ Tannhauser is the gate-crasher. His idea of love is physical, erotic: ‘Only in pleasure do I love.’

This violates the chaste values of the competition. (No sex we’re German!) Whereas Wolfram praise ideal love as spiritual, which he would die for. Tannhauser replies, love can only be experienced through sensual pleasure. Tannhauser breaks into a song praising Venus, admitting he’s been away in Venusberg (a brothel, implicitly having sex) Disgusted, the adjudicator threatens to kill him. Elisabeth springs to protect him. She admits how deeply Tannhauser betrayed her. But she pleads he be allowed to do penance. We see Hilley’s Tannhauser, face bloodied, as if he’s been beaten up.

Elisabeth sings of ‘this doomed man, held captive by a spell, who can’t find salvation. Nylund, in her aria, sings movingly, ‘she’s a maid cut short by one blow’, who loved him deeply, but who’s heart he broke.’ She pleads for him before the Knight.
Tannhauser -Alas, unhappy man that I am!– crawls on his knees before her. He has defiled their company. There’s only one path open to prevent his doom. To repent. Not to return without the Pope’s dispensation for his sins. Nylund, in Elisabeth’s self-denial, is, emotionally heart-rending, ‘Take away my life.’ She can hardly call it hers.

The stage for Act3 is surprising, and effective. In a gothic building, reminding of Hollywood 1930’s film noir, we’re at the bar of the Last Judgement. ‘I knew I’d find him here’, Wolfram sings, ‘her heart (Elisabeth’s) was dealt a fatal blow.’ Wolfram awaits the pilgrims from Rome. Will he be pardoned? Wolfram’s is a superb tenor. For the celebrated Pilgrims’ Chorus, the returning pilgrims, white-hooded, starkly contrasted, glowing under spotlights, against the gloom-ridden black building, .

Elisabeth is sobbing, kneeling, prostrate. Nylund sings, ‘Almighty Virgin hear my plea’. She strips off her brightly coloured dress, down to her underclothes. On a stairway (to heaven) back of the stage, Wolfram’s winning song, ‘Du mein holder Abendstern‘, (from a heart that never betrayed you), is wonderfully rendered.

In stumbles a pilgrim, a worn-down, Hilley, as Tannhauser, seeks ‘one who can show him the way, once so easy.’ To symbolize his internal struggle, the Girls are Back!, two now suspended, like circus artistes. And below them modern dancers. Venus descends in a glittering, silver-jeweled crescent. Tannhauser is drawn back to her. (Ominously, a coffin descends covered in white cloth.)

Tannhauser, ‘Ich hore zu, I hear it!’ and Hilley collapses in pain, as if having a heart attack. Elisabeth, at the top of the heavenly stairs, descends to the Pilgrims’ Hymn. The refrain seems to waken Tannhauser. The miracle of Tannhauser’s salvation is proclaimed by the young pilgrims.

This production, from the sensational opening- gratuitous, shocking- was ultimately powerfully moving. The performances were of a high caliber, not least Nylund’s Elisabeth, Hilley’s tenor a revelation. Kober ably conducted Vienna’s considerable forces. © P.R, 21.9.25
Photos © Ekaterina Gubanova (Elisabeth), Clay Hilley (Tannhauser) © Ashley Taylor/ Wiener Staatsoper;
Camilla Nylund (Elisabeth) © Michael Poehn/ Wiener Staatsoper