The reason Tim Albery’s 2010 production of Wagner’s problem child works well is that his gimmicky concept doesn’t get in the way. Unloved though his production seems to be (at least among some of my fellow operagoers), the director’s expressionistic take on Tannhäuser has one significant ace up its sleeve: it lets the opera speak for itself.
Now onto its second revival, Albery’s bleak stage is dominated by a meticulous replica of the Royal Opera House’s proscenium arch and front curtain that crumbles to pieces in Act 2 and is reduced to vestigial fragments in Act 3. Wagner’s second-act song contest is a glum affair, monitored by scowling guards toting rifles. As a visual commentary on the downtrodden place of the arts in contemporary Britain Michael Levine’s designs are more timely than ever, but desperately unsubtle.
Too long in thrall to the goddess Venus, Tannhäuser tires of fleshly pursuits and yearns for his old life, so he heads back home and takes part in a singing competition. He horrifies his listeners (who include his beloved Elisabeth) by extolling the joys of carnal love; they expel him with death threats and he goes to the Pope to seek absolution.
A dodgy dividend of this staging is that Venusberg, that hotbed of hellbound eroticism, is a more desirable place to dwell than the gloomy land of good behaviour. This paradox is a fundamental snag within the opera itself, but it is exacerbated by Albery's production. The saintly Elisabeth waits above but Venus, eternal and insatiable, seems a better fit for Tannhäuser’s psyche. Jasmin Vardimon’s Venusberg choreography, moreover, may be oddly sexless and lacking in sensuality but it provides half an hour of energetic rompy fun that never returns.
Sebastian Weigle’s conducting was surprisingly sluggish on opening night, to the extent that I regularly found myself taken out of the action and willing him to get on with it. William Spaulding’s formidable ROH Chorus sang like angels, though, and the orchestra played like the very devil. Inwardly I gasped at the beauty of the offstage horns that opened Act 3.
The solo singing was exceptional, with Lise Davidsen in glorious voice as the tragic Elisabeth, perhaps less vulnerable than her predecessors in this production but ravishing on her own terms. Ekaterina Gubanova was a superb Venus, vocally rich and toothsome, and an urbane Gerald Finley as the good Wolfram came close to effacing Christian Gerhaher’s achievement in the previous iterations. The excellent bass Mika Kares was emphatic as the Landgrave Hermann and Sarah Dufresne sang the Young Shepherd with style and elegance.
Wagner's title character has yet to find its ideal interpreter in this production, whether physically or vocally, although had Stefan Vinke not been indisposed he might have been the man to do it. As it was, Vinke acted silently and in perfect sync with his last-minute stand-in, the Austrian tenor Norbert Ernst, who sang the role very convincingly from the side of the stage. In a curious nod to the late Johan Botha, the role’s originator at the ROH who suffered from mobility issues, Albery continues to give our hero plenty of sitting-down time across the three acts. Who knows, perhaps the fun of Venusberg took its toll. As one accusing surtitle said of him, “He has known the delights of hell”. Lucky Tannhäuser.
