Wagner's "Tannhauser" opens with a famous/infamous Bacchanalia. It's Venusberg, and the Goddess of Love (ne Holda, Goddess of Spring) is entertaining her lover, Tannhauser, in a (usually) wild orgy involving nymphs, sirens, and other ladies of the night. When the San Francisco Opera's new production - General Manager David Gockley's first for the company - begins its run tonight in the War Memorial, what will Venusberg look like in Graham Vick's direction, Paul Brown's design? If the Opera listens to the author of its own program notes, Thomas May, the orgy should be quite free of "cheap eroticism." Cautions May (in http://sfopera.com/opera.asp?o=251&i=119): "The opera's opening scenes have been known to inspire unfortunate (and justly parodied) exaggerations, all in an attempt to establish the realm of Venus as distinct from the world of penitential pilgrims as well as that of chivalric decorum - an aim already magnificently accomplished in Wagner's score. But cheap eroticism and a kind of corybantic, danced Kama Sutra - where the choreographic becomes merely graphic - miss the point in their very overemphasis." The point will be made or missed in just a few hours. Janos Gereben www.sfcv.org [log in to unmask] *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html