This evening we get to hear large swaths of Wagner's opera "Tannhäuser." I saw a Metropolitan Opera performance when it was transmitted to theaters several years ago, and I think it's a good show. Here's how WCRB describes the concert:
Saturday, February 4, 2023
8:00 PMEncore broadcast on Monday, February 13
Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and a stellar lineup of soloists in highlights from Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Amber Wagner, soprano (Elisabeth)
Marina Prudenskaya, mezzo-soprano (Venus)
Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor (Tannhäuser)
Christian Gerhaher, baritone (Wolfram)
Tanglewood Festival ChorusALL-WAGNER
Overture and “Venusberg Music” from Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser, Act IIITo hear a preview with Andris Nelsons, use the player above and read the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Andris Nelsons, who's back in Boston to lead a concert of excerpts
Next we look at the BSO performance detail page, which has links links to the very helpful program notes:
Andris Nelsons and the BSO’s continuing tradition of performing opera in concert brings us excerpts from Richard Wagner’s early opera Tannhäuser, which had its premiere in Dresden in 1845. A German minstrel-knight, Tannhäuser (tenor Klaus Florian Vogt), struggles to reject the world’s sensual pleasures, represented by the "Venusburg Music" of the opera’s Act I. He is redeemed by the pure love of Elisabeth, sung by Amber Wagner, and with the help of the wise minstrel Wolfram, sung by Christian Gerhaher.
Sung in German with English supertitles
This week’s performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus are supported by the Alan J. and Suzanne W. Dworsky Fund for Voice and Chorus.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Amber Wagner, soprano (Elisabeth)
Klaus Florian Vogt, tenor (Tannhäuser)
Christian Gerhaher, baritone (Wolfram)
Marina Prudenskaya, soprano (Venus)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor
ALL-WAGNER program
Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser (25)
---- Intermission----Tannhäuser Act III (60)
The reviews are both favorable. The Globe thinks the opening of the overture was too slow. The Intelligencer is similar, but the reviewer garbles the story line.
The thing is, the opera is fiction using the historical characters of the great medieval poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia (also known as Elizabeth of Hungary), and the poet/minstrel Tannhäuser. There was also a jubilee year in which pilgrims flocked to Rome. But basically, the opera is a pretty good story of sin, love, and redemption.
If you'd like to follow along with the libretto, here's a link. http://www.murashev.com/opera/Tannhäuser_libretto_English_German
I recommend listening this evening at 8:00, Boston Time, and on Febreuary 13, also at 8:00.
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