Richard Wagner was known for a strong mother fixation but he was anything but a homosexual. Rather, he was a notorious womanizer. However, the love of men does not appear to have bothered Wagner in the least in his environment. The diary entry that is relevant in that regard is the one in which he speaks out about Pepino, the homosexual servant of Paul von Joukowsky, the equally homosexual set designer of Parsifal: “It's something I understand but have no sense for.” Thus Wagner joined the majority of men for whom it remains unabated : “Ewig lockt das Weib!”
So explaining Wagner's work from a homosexual orientation is complete nonsense. Yet this is what director Matthew Wild undertook in Frankfurt. “The fact that words and ideas become threatening at some point is something that not only homosexual people have to experience painfully over and over again,” Wild says. It says something about the militant nature of his work as a director, and it should come as no surprise that he then transforms Wagner's opera into a pamphlet about repression of homosexuality by the Catholic Church.
Here Tannhäuser's full name is Heinrich von Ofterdingen, as in Novalis' unfinished novel that was one of the inspirations to Wagner's opera. He is also a German professor who fled the Nazis and won the Pulitzer Prize with his novel Montsalvat. He teaches at the arch-Catholic Maris Stella University in California until he disappears from public view without a trace. We learn all this through headlines in German and American newspapers which an elderly lady brings to the attention of an empty lecture hall via a powerpoint presentation. But it is Heinrich's sexual orientation that drives the intrigue. He is a torn homosexual, and we see him living out his erotic fantasies in a hotel room after putting on a gramophone record with the bacchanal of the Venusberg music. Fortunately, the music does not come from the rickety sixties gramophone but from the orchestra pit of the Oper Frankfurt, and Thomas Guggeis manages to bring out all the details of the intoxicatingly exotic prelude. Musically, it will be a pretty great Wagner evening.
Further literary references include Thomas Mann with “Death in Venice” and Christopher Isherwood with “A Single Man.” And so we see Heinrich as Colin Firth in Tom Ford's film of the same name. The other cinematic reference is Tadzio, the young man in the navy-blue striped t-shirt from Visconti's “Death in Venice.” In the erotic fantasies Tannhäuser and his two doubles interact with mythological figures such as Cupid, Bacchus, Ganymede, St. Sebastian, Tadzio, satyrs and fauns, all obvious references to works of homoerotic iconography. It is all very illustrative, and Louisa Talbot's attempts at choreography are neither sensual nor engaging. Venus appears here less as a seductress than as muse. With her skull mask, she anticipates the end, that only death will bring redemption. That the shepherdess bursting with the May sentiment was once again degraded to a cleaning lady is the eternal cliché for characters who do not fit the directorial concept.
Elisabeth sings her Hallenaria to an empty lecture hall. Heinrich's book has stirred something in her (“Verlangen das ich nie gekannt”) as she has her copy signed during the duet with the unexpectedly returned poet. The landgrave with his nasty flat and tacky haircut has mutated into the dean of the heterosexually normed campus. The “arrival of the guests” makes the college benches fill up for the poetry contest. The trumpet fanfare traverses the stage; the four noble pages are cheerleaders. Turmoil erupts when Heinrich finally comes out of the closet by kissing Tadzio. The female students who had just begged rapturously for autographs now tear up Ofterdingen's book in disgust. A mini-autodafe follows. It is the best scene of the evening because it mirrors the ease with which a reversal based on moral arguments happens. Elisabeth's sigh “What is the wound of thy swords against the deadly blow he gave me?” does not fall on a cold stone in this context but very implausible is Tannhäuser exclaiming “have mercy on me who, oh, so deep in sin, shamefully failed to recognize heaven's mediator!” That he throws those words so bellowingly into the discussion means that his sense of guilt is crucial. But what is Tannhäuser's guilt ?
According to Peter Russell, the opera offers no logical reason for Tannhäuser's extreme reaction. I can only agree. In the homosexual context, it is even more implausible. In a letter to Liszt and also in his essay “On the Performance of Tannhäuser” (1852), Wagner tells us that the passage most crucial to an understanding of the drama is the one in which Tannhäuser, faced with the moral indignation of his fellow knights and Elisabeth's passionate intercession on his behalf, realizes where his offence lies, namely in projecting a sexual desire on to a spiritual woman. Russell suggests that this is also the disguised enactment of a repressed desire that lived in its creator: the projection of sexual desire onto a mother figure. Is that why Wagner was finaly unsatisfied with his opera and never came to terms with it? By the way, the final chorus of the second act is really not good. You understand the composer when he tells Cosima three weeks before his death that he still owes the world a Tannhäuser.
Elisabeth is allowed by Wolfram to listen to the slowly returning pilgrim choir by headphones. The chorus cannot be seen at first but now turns out to consist of church leaders. From a man wearing the mask of a black goat, the priests pull down his pants and cut his throat. Is it a personal reckoning of the director with the clerical caste? And an allusion to the Second Vatican Council ? After the Rome narration, Tannhäuser is suicidal. Both he and Elisabeth swallow a vial of pills but Elisabeth survives, edits Tannhäuser's estate and becomes a successful author herself. We now learn that the elderly lady of the opening scene was Elisabeth whom we now see celebrated as a champion of sexual emancipation. Applause!
Marco Jentzsch was nooit een powerhouse van een tenor. Het timbre is helder maar te hoog en de stem projecteert niet meer als weleer. “Allmächtiger, dir sei Preis” omzetten tot behoort niet tot zijn mogelijkheden. In het duet “Gepriesen sei die Stunde” wordt hij overklast door zijn vrouwelijke partner. Maar er is nog steeds dat ontwapenend engagement waarmee hij je weet in te pakken en dat in de Rome-vertelling zijn hoogtepunt kent. Christina Nilsson als Elisabeth zingt een perfecte Hallenaria met haar rijke, volle, warm getimbreerde sopraan. Vibrato en registerovergangen zijn goed onder controle. Moeiteloos stuurt ze haar dramatische uithalen trompetgewijs in de zaal. Haar internationale carrière (o.a. Aida in de Met) is al in de maak en we zien haar graag terug. Dshamilja Kaiser klinkt niet zo evenwichtig maar presenteert toch een rijke mezzoklank als Venus. Domen Krizajs lyrische bariton kon mij meer overtuigen als Rodrigo dan hier als Wolfram. Het timbre is niet al te helder en op interpretatief vlak zou hij. Andreas Bauer Kanabas leende zijn prachtbas aan de landgraaf. Hij zingt de partij met de spirituele autoriteit van een Sarastro. Ook Karolina Bengtsson was uitstekend als het herderinnetje met de poetsvodden.
Marco Jentzsch never was a powerhouse of a tenor. The timbre is clear but rather high and the voice does not project as it once did. Turning “Allmächtiger, dir sei Preis” into a volcanic eruption is not among his capabilities. In the duet “Gepriesen sei die Stunde,” he has to let his female partner lead the way. But there is still that disarming commitment with which he manages to captivate you and which reaches its peak in the Rome narration. Christina Nilsson as Elisabeth sings a perfect Hallenaria with her rich, full, warmly timbreed soprano. Vibrato and register transitions are well under control. Effortlessly she sends her dramatic outbursts trumpet-like into the auditorium. Her international career (including Aida next season at the Met) is already in the making and we look forward to seeing her again. Dshamilja Kaiser does not sound as poised but still presents a rich mezzo sound as Venus. Domen Krizaj's lyrical baritone was more convincing as Rodrigo than here as Wolfram. The timbre is not too bright and on an interpretative level he could still grow. His affinity for the Italian profession seems greater to me for now. Andreas Bauer Kanabas lent his well-projecting splendid bass to the landgrave. He sings the part with the spiritual authority of a Sarastro. Karolina Bengtsson was also excellent as the shepherdess with the cleaning rags.
Thomas Guggeis and the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester perform the Vienna version (1875), the last on which the master's gaze has rested. With Guggeis, are we experiencing a reissue of Sebastian Weigle's helmsmanship ? The prelude is heard with masterly control in line with what we were already used to with this orchestra under Weigle. The brass also sounds very well controlled. The prelude to the third act is played with the curtain closed. That the director deliberately cuts himself away is appropriate because with its feverish accelerandi and maddening crescendi this is the highlight for the orchestra. Chorus master Tilman Michael is leaving for the Met for at least a year. It speaks volumes about the choir's persistently outstanding performance in Frankfurt. The chorus was capable of highly differentiated singing, sounding homogeneous in the devotion of the pilgrims, rising transparently in the excitement of the Wartburg.