MOVIE REVIEW: Tannhauser

Johan Botha in the title role in Wagner's Tannh�user

Johan Botha in the title role in Wagner's Tannh�user

Published Nov 27, 2015

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TANNHÄUSER

STAGE DIRECTOR: Otto Schenk, updated by Stephen Pickover

CONDUCTOR: James Levine

CAST: Johan Botha, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Peter Mattei, Michelle DeYoung, Günther Groissböck

SET DESIGNER: Günther Schneider-Siemssen

RATING: 4 stars (out of 5)

RUNNING TIME: 297 minutes, including two intervals

Paul Boekkooi

Even at the best of times, Wagner, his plots and music can appear to be complicated. His Tannhäuser, a grandiose tragedy first produced in 1845, was received with little enthusiasm. Perhaps it might have been because the composer’s librettos were internalised, full of symbolism and psychologically motivated.

To put it a bit more plainly in latter day terms, this opera’s broader themes are still about love, sacrifice, redemption, the artist’s calling in society, but very much also about sin and sex. The story is based on the legend of an eponymous minstrel torn between sacred and profane love.

The Metropolitan Opera’s first production in eleven years harks back to the one of 1977 by Otto Schenk, which is dramatically updated by Stephen Pickover in a sensible way, while retaining and staying within the historical context of the opera.

For this staging the powers that be chose the Paris version with its heightened creative high noon instead of the original Dresden version of Tannhäuser. One can now appreciate Ernest Newman’s comment that the Paris version represents “a fiery sun” after the pale moon of the original.

Tenor Johan Botha displays a complete identification in the title role and impresses with a secure legato line while presenting us with one of his most committed performances, sung with intelligence and confidence. His account by turns indicates the hero’s infatuation with Venus and pure love for Elisabeth.

The underlying erotic passion of the Venusberg scene is vocally boldly contrasted with the bitterness and desperation of his handling of the Rome Narration after Tannhäuser’s fruitless visit to the Pope seeking forgiveness. We can be proud of Botha, notwithstanding the fact that his acting is a bit stodgy from time to time.

Eva-Maria Westbroek in the role of Elisabeth has a ravishing presence which she immediately establishes in her opening aria, Dich, teure Halle, of Act II. This is all but a tender girlish-sounding performance. The quality of the voice is responsible for that. It is rather thrilling to have so powerful a dramatic soprano who is also able to cap the most thickly-textured of ensembles.

Peter Mattei sings Wolfram. He is a mellifluous, but a concerned man. His voice has a strong resonance as well as an inner core which the character needs to be convincing throughout. Michelle DeYoung as Venus sings securely and seductively, but not always with the same level of idiomatic diction of her colleagues.

Also worth mentioning is the charming young soprano Ying Fang who did something special with her short appearance as the shepherd, with perfect a capella singing and evoking the sounds of the English horn in the pit.

All the knights are expertly cast and the Met Chorus are, as always, stalwarts. This time the off-stage effects are especially atmospheric, with pianissimo singing extraordinary fine and delicate.

James Levine, who led the performance from his wheelchair, often wanders, highlighting salient details, but somehow misses out on the music’s animal vigour and its sense of physical abandonment.

Screens at Cinema Nouveau and selected Ster-Kinekor theatres until December 10.

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