Philippe Jordan's Tannhäuser

[Brünnhilde forever]

This is one Tannhäuser performance making me remove it from my list of Wagner's 'religious' works. So far all my previous productions I have seen and heard, had great music and fairly good singers, sedate performance with lots of Schmalz.

Nikolaus Lehnhoff and Philippe Jordan produced a new Tannhäuser, a dramatic, serious and overwhelming one. Lehnhoff's directing partnered with an especially gifted costum designer and Jordan's vigour with the musicians of the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin finally convinced me this performance at the Baden-Baden opera is worth watching again and of course recommending it highly.

Because there is always so much unused space in the Opera and Vocal section of GMG, I'll post as many photos as I am allowed.

[Brünnhilde forever]

Told you there'll be more:

[Brünnhilde forever]

Didn't give you the names of the performers in the photos:

Tannhäuser: Robert Gambill; Venus: Waltraud Meier; Wolfram von Eschenbach: Roman Trekel.

[Brünnhilde forever]

and the Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan:

[knight66]

It looks good Lis. The last time I encountered the opera, I slept through a lot of it. My fault rather than the opera or the production, which was rather odd.

How is it musically?

Mike

[Brünnhilde forever]

I titled this thread Philippe Jordan's Tannhäuser on purpose because it is the musical performance of the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin under this young conductor lifting it above the average ho-hum music we are used to hearing. Mike, if I were a musician I could talk about the trombones doing this or that different, or the oboists playing their notes better, but I am not. I can only tell you that my heart did a few extra beats during the entrance of the guests. And my eyes got a bit moist when the pilgrim's march was played, very gripping. Even the usually mushy Abendstern didn't bore me; the credit for that definitely goes to Roman Trekel'sWolfram von Eschenbach, superb!

[T-C]

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this release, but for my taste, musically this performance is flawed because of the singing in the leading role. Fifteen years ago, Robert Gambill had a very beautiful lyrical tenor voice. But after singing too many exhausting Wagner's roles in recent years, his voice dried out. His high notes are now damaged with a very wide wobble and his whole voice production is unpleasant for my ears. It is not easy to enjoy a Tannhauser performance without a Tannhauser...

And as for Lehnhoff's production, I usually like what he does, but I must admit that his 'Venusburg' is a bit odd, with those dancers who look like pupas. It is the contrary to seduction and sensuality. I hoped the pupas will transform into butterflies, but it never happened...

On the other hand, I can wholeheartedly recommend without any reservations another DVD, which I watched lately: Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro from the Zurich opera 2007, which is conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. The stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf updated the opera to our times brilliantly, with many original and at times extremely hilarious ideas. From the musical point of view this is an excellent performance too. And these EMI DVDs are relatively cheap.