Tannhauser

Composer: Wagner, Richard

Librettist/Text Author: Wagner, Richard

Conductor: Davis, Colin

Orchestra: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Chorus: Bayreuth Festival Chorus

Chorus Master: Balatsch, Norbert

Biterolf: Mazura, Franz

Elisabeth: Jones, Gwyneth

Heinrich der Schreiber: Pickering, John

Hermann, Landgraf von Thuringen: Sotin, Hans

Reimar von Zweter: Feldhoff, Heinz

Tannhauser: Wenkoff, Spas

Venus: Jones, Gwyneth

Walter von der Vogelweide: Schunk, Robert

Wolfram von Eschenbach: Weikl, Bernd

Producer: Hohlfeld, Horant

Set Designer: Rose, Jurgen

Costume Designer: Rose, Jurgen

Choreographer: Neumeier, John

Stage Director: Friedrich, Gotz

Television Director: Friedrich, Gotz

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Date of Production: 1978

Festival: Bayreuth Festival

Venue: Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Playing Time: 03:09:16

Catalogue Number: A05004557

Libretto

Tannhauser (NTSC)

Synopsis

Tannhauser (NTSC)

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This is the first complete television production recorded at the annual Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. Director Gotz Friedrich sees the minstrel Tannhauser as a rugged artistic individualist, much as Wagner was himself, misunderstood by his contemporaries who seek to throttle his inalienable right of expression. He turns his back on a regulated, stifling society and retreats into the world of his own impossible dreams. Whereas other productions of Tannhäuser show the minstrel acutally biding time in the court of Venus, in Friedrich's version Tannhauser's harp triggers an imaginary Venusberg, in which the strings become a tangled web of pure sensuality. Tannhauser discovers that a completely anything-goes society is just as restrictive in the end, and he returns to the real world. But Tannhauser can't go home again. Once again he lashes out at his hypocritical associates, who condemn him. His only defender is the saintly Elisabeth, who in this production is played by the same soprano who sings Venus – two sides of the coin in the eternal feminine. She prays for her own death, so that thereby Tannhauser's soul leaves this restrictive world for a better one in which his genius is appreciated.