(Bayreuth, Germany) The rain that fell on Bayreuth this afternoon was nothing compared to the boos that rained down this evening for director Sebastian Baumgarten’s production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser in the Festspielhaus.
Not that they were totally undeserved. Baumgarten updated the time period from the medieval era to the present day. To that end, he was aided and abetted by Joep van Lieshout’s so-called "Technocrat" uniset: a scene inside of a "Wartburg" factory with two catwalks, a large "Biogas" tank, some other smaller tanks, and placed upstage, a huge, red "ALKOHOLATOR," labeled with the German short forms for the days of the week (So., or Sunday was omitted).
Before the opera began, patrons in the auditorium watched "workers" (supernumeraries) being busy on stage as large body bag-like items were being lifted to the flies (shades of the Valkyries?) under the watchful eyes of "audience members" seated on each side of the stage.
The "meaning" of all this? That was explained in diagram and word form in the festival's program booklet. Here's a portion of van Lieshout's printed notes:
"...The technocrat is an obsessive installation in which the human acts as operator and producer of excrements which are carefully processed in biogas.
The biogas is then used for the production of food (no food - no excrements) and Alcohol (we want happy people and no revolution).
This installation parallels the traditional setting of Tannhäuser" the 'marvellous' Singers Hall in the Wartburg castle. The Wartburg is also a place of power, society, systems and conventions, ethics and morality and stands quite opposite the Venus mountain where the individual hedonistic freedom rules.
Sure.
The Venus-grotto was an outsized, circular cage (think go-go-girls, only larger), which was raised from beneath the stage. The nymphs, totally clothed and bathed in red light, behaved like monkeys, jumping and prancing around inside the cage. Strange looking creatures (supernumeraries in weird animal costumes) cavorted at the lip of the stage. Later, cast members approached the ALKOHOLATOR, rending homage to it in an almost religious manner (think Orthodox icons and you've got the picture). And if that weren’t enough, there was constant video being projected on the scrim upstage. In one of the sequences, a woman in her birthday suit was seen working the machinery in the factory, sitting on the toilet, and striking other poses—-all of which were sequenced as a palindrome. As for Elisabeth, she becomes a martyr when she enters the Biogas tank. Gone to heaven as a result? That's what the video footage of her face ascending on the upstage scrim would have you believe. As for Tannhäuser, he expires atop the Venusberg "go-go-girl" cage.
Baumgarten’s and van Lieshout's glosses weren’t always clear. Was this a critique of our society’s industrial idolatry? Was it a purposeful snub of the Tannhäuser tale? The answer to that came during intermission.
During the second interval, about 50 members of the audience remained in the auditorium to witness a “church service” acted out on stage by Baumgarten’s- and van Lieshout’s so-called “slaves of the Technocrat.” They sang two hymns, one at the beginning to the melody of the German national anthem, and one at the end to the well-known German chorale, O Haupt, voll Blut und Wunden. In between, there was a Confession of Sins (Sündenbekenntnis), the Creed (Glaubensbekenntnis), the Ten Commandments, a reading by a "lay person"--the entire shebang completely made up, by the way--led by a white-robed “priest," all in praise of Apollo and Dionysus, with a funny written line, totally tongue in cheek, about de Sade and van Lieshout, projected on a side panel. This ten-minute Spiel was a total send-up of "church," and vis-à-vis the opera's plot, Tannhäuser's pilgrimage to Rome.
Ditto for Baumgarten’s staging. With his send-up of Tannhäuser, Baumgarten gave us a "Grosse komische Oper" rather than Wagner's "Grosse romantische Oper." If you came to Bayreuth looking for something deep and philosophical, and even if you tried to decipher the comings and goings on stage amid all of the scenic and printed clap-trap, the mental gymnastics you'd have needed weren't worth it. In short, you've been punk'd!
The vocal highlights were provided by Eberhard Friedrich’s excellent Festspielchor, the men sounding particularly virile. Near the end of the work, one had hoped that the women choristers would have made more of the ear-catching, piquant harmonic shift from an E flat chord to a D flat chord on the text "aller Welt ist Gott," rather than singing it in a so matter-of-fact manner.
Günther Groissböck was a stand out as a hardy sounding Landgraf. Ditto for Michael Nagy’s Wolfram, though there were a few bumpy notes in O! du mein holder Abendstern. Camilla Nylund was definitely a pretty Elisabeth. But she definitely didn’t have the richness of voice for Dich teure Halle grüsse ich wieder. Lars Cleveman’s Tannhäuser ebbed and flowed, mostly the former. In Act 1, he appeared as Tannhäuser in his underwear, and began Dir töne Lob! by briefly strumming on an air harp. Lothar Odinius was a fine Walther. As Venus, who, thanks to Baumgarten was here presented as pregnant, ugly-as-sin Madam, Stephanie Friede was booed, more than likely for her squally voice. Katja Stuber wore the pants quite effectively as A young Shepherd. Thomas Jesatko’s Biterolf, Bayreuth stalwart Arnold Bezuyen’s Heinrich, Martin Snell’s Reinmar as well as the Four Edelknaben, Saskia Kreuser, Johanna Dur, Stephanie Hanf, and Kirsten Obelgönner came across decently.
In the pit, Thomas Hengelbrock had the Festspielorchester sounding in top form. However, in this their fifth presentation of Tannhäuser this summer, Hengelbrock and company were at times still covering the singers on stage. According to the program notes, Hengelbrock was conducting from a lithographic copy based on the handwritten copy of the score. From that, he added the piccolo part missing at Venus's words "Geliebter, komm, sieh dort die Grotte."
So, dear friends, time will tell whether we shall see something better in Bayreuth next summer."
Photo by Leonard Turnevicius: After the rain – the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth on the afternoon of August 19, 2011. (There is a strict prohibition on photography inside the hall.)
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