TANNHAEUSER IN SCHWERIN

   "We are pretty proud", the speechman of the Schwerin opera claimed,
   "that three special guests have come on visit to us:  Wolfgang Wagner,
   his wife Gudrun, and their daughter".  Ubiquitous hailing, a solitaire
   boh - and already in the first szene a regard to Bayreuth.  Up the
   the right, in the background to the scene; the festspielhaus.  And
   mirrored to the left of the scene; the mansion of the hell of lust,
   where a red-cheeked Venus and a shaggy Tannhaeuser stands before a
   wallmirror, suggesting extace in slow motion.  Instead of the
   traditional harp, the guest grips the feather in his hymnus and with
   impressing speed of a stenograpfer, he makes some hieroglyphs in a
   book.  A diary?

   It is verses that in the second act are ripped out of disguist by
   the people at Wartburg.  To understandment there is a suggestion to
   that the composer in "Tannhaeuser" has experienced to be a outsider
   in the art, in love and in the society.  His inscenery, claims the
   regisseur Wolfgang Quetes in the programme, is an attempt to show
   "the history of the poetry of Tannhaeuser; the way of his art"; the
   inspiration through the world of the love of the flesh; the attempts
   to in vain break through the conventions of the Wartburg-world, and
   the as well misfourtune attempt to find solvation in Rome.  As act
   of farewell, that is indeed sinful.  But a production of this opera
   must come up with good answers to a lot of questions.  Why did
   Tannhaeuser escape from Wartburg? How does he succeed the the hell
   of lust? Why does he want to escape the "dreamworld of love"? What
   drives him to declare his earthily love at the singerscompetition at
   Wartburg? What throws the, by the pope banished in "grauenhaftiger
   Begeisterung" back to Venus land? And, finally, what is the meaning
   of the selfaccusation, that Rickard Wagner as keypoint called:  "Zum
   Heil des Suendigen zu fuehren, die Gottgesandte nahte mir!  Doch ach!
   Sie frevelnd zu beruehren, hob ich den Laesterblick zu ihr."?

   Without the exact interpretation of this point, the whole Tannhaeuser
   remains, Wagner wrote in a letter to Franz Liszt, "ununderstandable,
   a conditionally, tracig figure".  In this production, the sinner for
   a while considers the hand of Elisabeth, which quickly is taken back
   from her.  Why? By unhappy love? Of why she understands the gesture
   as an improper acting by a person who stands under her on the social
   scale? Szenic answers to these questions are at least suggested in
   the production.  After the death of Tannhaeuser is the chiffre of
   the first wiew recalled with leitmotifs manner.  The Bayreuthian
   Festspielhaus appear.  Tannhaeusers - and Wagners - Utopia has found
   its peace in a monument!  The work of a rejected is honoured with a
   temple.  That the interesting idea was not musically worked-through,
   was most thanks to that Hans Aschanbach, with the titelrole, had too
   large demands on him as actor and singer.  The programme quotes a
   passage from the long demanding letter of 21.  February, which the
   composer wrote to tenor Albert before the premiere in Paris, where
   he urges him to save the whole evening with "erbarm dich mein", in
   other words:  to emphasis the "Erloesung" to escape every guilt.
   "Can you make it so every heart trembles, everything is won...".
   Though "Erbarm dich mein" worked forced, in falcett -a as to beg the
   audience to have understanding with the troubled singer.  Only to
   times the voice worked after the intentions of its carrier.  He worked
   his baritonial tuned voice into the highs without mixing the registers.
   All tones above the F and G rang unclear.  Already in the first szene,
   in the hymn to Venus, the enstrainment of voice became obvious.  Some
   attempts to sing with halved dynamics, got the effect that the voice
   didn't come out at all.  And the despair of the composer was obvious.

   The lyric baritone Martin Ackermann, safely lead technically, had
   a more tenoral voice than his antagonist.  His singing as Wolfram
   was really the best parts of the performance; not just the careful
   articulated, eloquent phrased, and dynamically subtil formed Lied to
   the Abendstern, and also the technich of intonation was outstanding,
   and dominated the whole scene where the singerscompetition is opened
   ("Blick ich umher").  Almost overdimensioned for the little theatre
   was the voluminous, in the high register metallic-brilliant and
   despite the for Slavonic voices so typical vibrato, very clam and
   cantabile voice of Mariana Zvetkova.  With Etlena Shemais Venus,
   shone only the red of the costume, and funny enough, as she has to
   play the seducer, in which she lay on her back with the legs in the
   air.

   All in all there was a lack of the magics of Shepherds- and
   English-horns-melodies, which marks the contrasts of the two scenes.
   In matters of singing and acting, Roger Krebs and the Count, Jeffrey
   Stewart as Walter and Dietmar Unger as Biterolf, came out successfully.
   Still the performance, despite Ivan Toerzs careful repetitional work,
   and a acceptable orchestral level, seemed rather forced than inspired.

   Juergen Kesting, FAZ, 25.01.2001

Mats Norrman
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