Таннгейзер: Опера Рихарда Вагнера

1845 opera by Richard Wagner

Tannhäuser (; full title Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, "Tannhäuser and the Minnesängers' Contest at Wartburg") is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner (WWV 70 in the catalogue of the composer's works). It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work. The opera remains a staple of major opera house repertoire in the 21st century.

Wagner began composing the music during a vacation in Teplitz in the summer of 1843 and completed the full score on 13 April 1845; the opera's famous overture, often played separately as a concert piece, was written last. While composing the music for the Venusberg grotto, Wagner grew so impassioned that he made himself ill; in his autobiography, he wrote, "With much pain and toil I sketched the first outlines of my music for the Venusberg Meanwhile, I was very much troubled by excitability and rushes of blood to the brain. I imagined I was ill and lay for whole days in bed " The instrumentation also shows signs of borrowing from French operatic style. The score includes parts for on stage brass; however, rather than using French brass instruments, Wagner uses 12 German waldhorns. Wagner also makes use of the harp, another commonplace of French opera. Wagner made a number of revisions of the opera throughout his life and was still dissatisfied with its format when he died. The most significant revision was made for the opera's première in Paris in 1861.

The first performance was given in the Königliches Hoftheater Dresden on 19 October 1845. The composer Ferdinand Hiller, at that time a friend of Wagner, assisted in the musical preparations for the production. The part of Elisabeth was sung by Wagner's niece Johanna Wagner. Wagner had intended to premiere the opera on 13 October, Johanna's 19th birthday, but she was ill, so it was postponed by six days. Venus was sung by Wilhelmine Schröder Devrient, and the title role of Tannhäuser by Josef Tichatschek. The performance was conducted by the composer. Tannhäuser was not the success that Rienzi had been, and Wagner almost immediately set to modifying the ending, adjusting the score through 1846 and 1847. For the first Dresden revival (1847) he clarified the representation of Venus's temptation of Tannhäuser in the final act and added vocal presentation of the pilgrim's chorus in this act (where it had previously been represented by orchestra alone). This version of the opera, as revised for publication in 1860, is generally known as the "Dresden" version. After Franz Liszt produced the opera at Weimar Court Theatre in 1849, there were further performances between 1852 and 1856 in (amongst other locations) Schwerin, Kassel, Poznań, Wiesbaden, Hanover, Munich, and Berlin. The Dresden version was used for initial productions outside Germany, notably at Riga on 18 January 1853; at Tallinn on 10 January 1854; at Prague on 25 November 1854 at Theatre of the Estates; at New York City on 4 April 1859 at the Stadt Theatre; and in London on 6 May 1876 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (when it was sung in Italian).

Wagner substantially amended the opera for a special 1861 performance by the Paris Opéra. This had been requested by Emperor Napoleon III at the suggestion of Princess Pauline von Metternich, wife of the Austrian ambassador to France. This revision forms the basis of what is now known as the "Paris version" of Tannhäuser. The venue meant that the composer had to insert a ballet into the score, according to the traditions of the house. Wagner agreed to this condition since he believed that a success at the Opéra represented his most significant opportunity to re establish himself following his exile from Germany. However, rather than put the ballet in its traditional place in act 2, he chose to place it in act 1, in the form of a bacchanale, where it could make dramatic sense by representing the sensual world of Venus's realm. There were further extensive changes. The text was translated into French (by Charles Louis Étienne Nuitter and others). Venus, a role that in the Dresden version was considered a soprano, was rewritten as for mezzo soprano. Venus' aria "Geliebter, komm!" was transposed down by a semitone, and its latter part was completely rewritten. A solo for Walther was removed from act 2. Extra lines for Venus following Tannhäuser's "Hymn to Love" were added. The orchestral introduction to act 3 was shortened. The end of the opera was reworked to include Venus on stage, where before the audience only heard the Venus motif, in an attempt to clarify the action. Tannhäusers first performance in Paris was given on 13 March 1861 at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra. The composer had been closely involved in its preparation and there had been 164 rehearsals. The costumes were designed by Alfred Albert, the sets by Charles Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry (act 1, scene 1), Édouard Desplechin (act 1, scene 2 and act 3), and Joseph Nolau and Auguste Alfred Rubé (act 2). At the first performance the opera was initially well received, with disturbances including whistling and catcalls beginning to appear in act 2 and becoming prominent by the end of the third act. For the second performance much of the new ballet music was removed, together with some actions that had specifically provoked mockery, such as the piping of the shepherd in act 1. At this performance however the audience disturbances were increased. This was partly due to members of the wealthy and aristocratic Jockey Club, who objected to the ballet coming in act 1, since this meant they would have to be present from the beginning of the performance (disrupting their dining schedule). It was alleged that they distributed whistles to the audience. A further incentive to disruption was the unpopularity of Princess von Metternich and of her native country of Austria. At the third performance on 24 March (which Wagner did not attend) uproar caused several interruptions of up to fifteen minutes at a time. As a consequence, Wagner withdrew the opera after the third performance. This marked the end to Wagner's hopes of establishing himself in Paris. The first performance outside France of the "Paris" version was given in Bologna on 7 November 1872 at the Teatro Comunale, (the first performance of the opera in Italy). The American and British premieres of this version were respectively in New York at the Metropolitan Opera on 30 January 1889, and at London's Royal Opera House on 15 July 1895.

A few further changes to Tannhäuser were made for an 1875 performance of the opera in Vienna, the last production carried out under Wagner's own supervision. These included the opera being sung in German (rather than in French, as in Paris) and linking the end of the overture to the start of the opera proper. The 1875 Vienna version is that normally used in modern productions of the "Paris" version, often with the reinstatement of Walther's act 2 solo. Wagner remained dissatisfied with the opera. Cosima Wagner noted in her diary on 23 January 1883 (three weeks before he died) "He says he still owes the world Tannhäuser."

In Eisenach, Germany, in the early 13th century, the landgraves of the Thuringian Valley ruled the area of Germany around the Wartburg. They were great patrons of the arts, particularly music and poetry, holding contests between the Minnesingers at the Wartburg. Across the valley towered the Venusberg, in whose interior, according to legend, dwelt Holda, the Goddess of Spring. In time, Holda became identified with Venus, the pagan Goddess of Love, whose grotto was the home of sirens and nymphs. It was said that the goddess would lure the Wartburg minnesinger knights to her lair where her beauty would captivate them. The minnesinger knight Heinrich von Ofterdingen, known as Tannhäuser, left the court of the landgrave of Thuringia a year ago after a disagreement with his fellow knights. Since then, he has been held as a willing captive through his love for Venus, in her grotto in the Venusberg.

Wagner died in 1883. The first production of the opera at Wagner's Bayreuth Festspielhaus (originally constructed for the performance of his Ring Cycle), was undertaken under the supervision of Cosima Wagner in 1891, and adhered closely to the 'Vienna' version. Later performances at Bayreuth included one conducted by Richard Strauss (1894), and one where the Bacchanal was choreographed by Isadora Duncan (1904). Duncan envisaged the Bacchanal as a fantasy of Tannhäuser's fevered brain, as Wagner had written to Mathilde Wesendonck in 1860. Arturo Toscanini conducted the opera at Bayreuth in the 1930/31 season. In the words of the Wagner scholar Thomas S. Grey, "The Bacchanal remained a defining focus of many productions, as a proving ground for changing conceptions of the psychosexual symbolism of the Venusberg." Productions including those of Götz Friedrich at Bayreuth (1972) and Otto Schenk at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, (1977) "routinely offer quantities of simulated copulation and post coital langour, for which the Paris score offers ample encouragement". A Munich production (1994) included as part of Tannhäuser's fantasies "creatures out of Hieronymus Bosch crawl[ing] around the oblivious protagonist". A production mounted in 2013 at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, was withdrawn after angry protests and reports of distressed audience members seeking medical help. Directed by de, the production incorporated characters dressed as Nazis; a realistic depiction of a death by shooting; and a setting within a Holocaust era concentration camp. After the first night, the opera's run continued in the form of unstaged concert performances only.