Rating: 
Summary: Music- great, Production - odd
Review: The music is wonderful. Singers range from exceptional, Meier and Weikl, to very good, Kollo and Secunde. That part of the opera is fine. The production suffers from an acute outbreak of obscure meaningful symbolism. There is a guy in a wolf suit, a woman dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, a [body part] here and there, lots of film noir camerawork with big shadows, and some things that look left over from Evita. The visual impact is powerful, but to what end? Meier's Venus is worth the purchase of the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Music- great, Production - odd
Review: The music is wonderful. Singers range from exceptional, Meier and Weikl, to very good, Kollo and Secunde. That part of the opera is fine. The production suffers from an acute outbreak of obscure meaningful symbolism. There is a guy in a wolf suit, a woman dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, a [body part] here and there, lots of film noir camerawork with big shadows, and some things that look left over from Evita. The visual impact is powerful, but to what end? Meier's Venus is worth the purchase of the DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Naked Breasts
Review: The overture to this production of 'Tannhäuser' has to be seen to be believed. I doubt that there's been a opera performance with so many naked breasts bouncing around, which earns this tape of it an extra star from me. The surreal ballet meant to represent Tannhäuser's nightmare defies literal interpretation, and it must have been quite a shock to the audience at the premiere. Unfortunately, the rest of the opera is not as risqué or as eye-grabbing although it remains visually interesting. The beginning of the first act in which Venus and Tannhäuser take their leave of each other resembles the corridor of a grand hotel or luxury apartment building. The two are in modern dress and look like urban sophisticates in the throes of a ending affair. Waltraud Meier is visually and - as far as I could tell - vocally stunning. I'm not an admirer of Rene Kollo, but he seems to do an adequate job here. The shepherd lad and the pages are performed by boy sopranos. My tape has a bad audio track, and I cannot evaluate the singers and the orchestra fairly (and, no, I can't return it). I hope it comes out on DVD soon in the US. I've never seen a favorable review of this performance, but Wagnerites are notorious sticks-in-the-mud, and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates innovative visuals (and naked breasts!).
Rating:
Summary: Lots of Naked Breasts
Review: The overture to this production of 'Tannhäuser' has to be seen to be believed. I doubt that there's been a opera performance with so many naked breasts bouncing around, which earns this tape of it an extra star from me. The surreal ballet meant to represent Tannhäuser's nightmare defies literal interpretation, and it must have been quite a shock to the audience at the premiere. Unfortunately, the rest of the opera is not as risqué or as eye-grabbing although it remains visually interesting. The beginning of the first act in which Venus and Tannhäuser take their leave of each other resembles the corridor of a grand hotel or luxury apartment building. The two are in modern dress and look like urban sophisticates in the throes of a ending affair. Waltraud Meier is visually and - as far as I could tell - vocally stunning. I'm not an admirer of Rene Kollo, but he seems to do an adequate job here. The shepherd lad and the pages are performed by boy sopranos. My tape has a bad audio track, and I cannot evaluate the singers and the orchestra fairly (and, no, I can't return it). I hope it comes out on DVD soon in the US. I've never seen a favorable review of this performance, but Wagnerites are notorious sticks-in-the-mud, and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates innovative visuals (and naked breasts!).
Rating: 
Summary: Some of the problems are Wagner's fault; some aren't.
Review: This production has a good deal wrong with it. I'm not necessarily opposed to "modern" productions that employ symbolism Wagner would never have approved of: The Parsifal film produced by Hans-Juergen Syberberg intrigued me, and I thought that heavy load of symbolism was mostly pretty well integrated with the actual Parsifal.
Here, however, the first act has gone badly wrong. The overture goes directly into the opening scene in the Venusberg. so far, so good; that is not how the opera was first produced either in Dresden (1845) or in Paris (1861), but Wagner had good reasons for doing it that way later on (1872--see Ernest Newman's "The Wagner Operas" for a guide through the various versions the composer attempted, combining his earlier and later thoughts and styles).
Where I dissent is that the Venusberg scene, which was intended as a lush and sensual ballet for Paris, has here been turned into a bleak and ugly representation of Tannhauser's despair, when he has found himself surfeited from delights he has enjoyed too much, for too long.
This makes dramatic nonsense out of the second act. In the argument about the nature of love Tannhauser cries out that the other singers know nothing about what it really is, and he wants to go back to the Venusberg that exemplifies it (driving the action forward toward the third act finale). But we know nothing about love or delight as it concerns Venusberg, only vacant-eyed characters symbolic of decedance, wandering aimlessly about the stage (occasionally doing backflips, struggling to carry heavy rocks, etc.). The Mountain of Venus must have pulled hard at the hapless Tannhauser, not once, but twice, and we have no idea from what we have seen how it could have happened.
Other failings are more trivial, but I have to mention the completely inadequate "chapter index," which runs up to #44 with short German labels and is without translations or guides other than act divisions. The cast is listed, but amazingly the roles are nowhere assigned (or even named).
The singing I think is mostly pretty good, but Rene Kollo's wobble is markedly unpleasant, particularly at the beginning, and, although he looks the part, his gestures are too often of the school-play variety. Rootering, Weikl, Secunde, and Meier are all outstanding. Costuming is bad in places: the singers who find Tannauser on the road are supposed to be in "hunting" clothes, but one of them is suited for court, in white and gold. Most of the women, both in Thuringia and in the Venusberg seem to prefer bodices (those who wear bodices) that shine like metal armor or very tight leather.
Wagner himself is considerably to blame. The opera has two quite different musical styles, two concepts for the tastes of two different cities, years apart, and it reflects too many second- and third-thoughts. The opera, for all its musical virtues, is badly constructed as it appears today.
I would, in any case, recommend waiting for a more coherent production.
Rating:
Summary: NADINE SECUNDE! NADINE SECUNDE!! NADINE SECUNDE!!!
Review: When American soprano, Nadine Secunde, appeared as Elisabeth in act II of this Munich production of Tannhäuser, I was transfixed. "She looks like she is straight out of a '30's production," I thought. Could this have been what Kirsten Flagstad's debut in the MET felt like to her unsuspecting audience? How do you describe a star? Whatever it takes to be one, Ms. Secunde has got it. It is not only her voice and magnetic stage presence. She has this rare dramatic quality that hypnotizes you and makes you forget everything else. Despite this, she has performed for years, generally, to mixed reviews. This is rather shocking. How can the existence of a talent of this order go unannounced by headlines in the media? All anyone has ever been hearing for the past half-century is that, "there are no great Wagnerian voices these days." The truth is that some of today's young singers surpass their distinguished predecessors. The reason that they do not receive the same kind of adulation as these earlier legends is twofold. First, the public is conditioned by reissued recordings and has become less receptive to new talent. This rigidity, shaped and nurtured by technology, is unprecedented in the history of the performing arts. The second reason is that, in the opinion of a number of performers, the music and recording industry is a Mafia. This explains why some singers are regulars on every other new recording (e.g. C.S.), while others languish. Another pleasant surprise on this DVD is René Kollo. When he recorded this Tannhäuser he had been singing the role for a quarter of a century. I expected him to be beyond his prime. However, my impression was that even though his voice was not as youthful sounding as on the '71 Solti set, he compensated with better discipline. The impetuous quality of his sound production on the Solti was in character. It had its charms. Though, it was somewhat annoying beyond a certain point, particularly with the occasional deficiency of vibrato. His conception of the role here is more detailed and controlled. Personally I prefer the wisdom of experience he brings to the role in this performance to his histrionics on the Solti set. The rest of the cast is first rate. Waltraud Meier and Bernd Weikl are incomparable. Zubin Mehta conducts this score as if he had been doing it all his life. He supports the singers without drowning them, maintains just the right level of drama and does not use it as a vehicle of his ego to make a statement about the meaning of life. It is quite amazing to recall that only twenty years earlier Mehta was struggling to be taken seriously as a Wagnerian conductor in Europe. After you listen to this glorious cast on act I, you feel that this is as good as it can get. But then Nadine Secunde appears in act II, and the rest is history. I lack the erudition, the refinement and the cultural sophistication to comment on the bizarre sets and décor. There are now three Tannhäusers on DVD. This one has the best voices and the best sound. The Naples production benefits from film director Werner Herzog's genius and is reviewed separately. Compared to these two the MET's is shockingly traditional, in the best possible sense. It is a throwback to how a lavish Tannhäuser may have looked a hundred years ago. The dark lighting serves to highlight the romanticism. The major drawback of the MET production is the poor German diction of the tenor, Richard Cassilly. He also sounds strained. Picture quality on the MET is in line with other Pioneer Classics reissues-grainy. It is much better on the other two Tannhäuser DVD's.
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