Review | Leipzig Opera’s Tannhäuser a visceral pleasure, and well sung and played too
- From bloody red to lush green to stark white, production of Wagner opera bore the unmistakable stamp of its Spanish director, Calixto Bieito
- His bold visuals didn’t always flow comfortably with the music, for all that it was well sung and beautifully played
If choosing between the sacred and the profane was one of Wagner’s favourite dilemmas, why did German company Leipzig Opera’s production of the composer’s opera Tannhäuser make it seem so easy?
Representing carnal temptation, its Spanish director, Calixto Bieito, had the work’s titular hero languishing nearly lifeless in Venus’ lair. Tannhäuser’s return to “purity” involved hanging out with the boys and getting his chest smeared with blood in a cross between bachelor-party revelry and pagan hunting ritual.
Really, which side was having more fun?
Visually, the production, part of this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival, was pure Bieito, from the bright red of the blood on shirtless males to the lush green forests of Venusberg and the stark white columns of Wartburg, where the singers seemed to move amid a Donald Judd minimalist sculpture.
Dramatically, though, the production was on shaky ground. A series of strong images doesn’t magically tell a story on its own – particularly when the material involved runs close to four hours. The surtitles, which used Ernest Newman’s century-old translation from the original German, didn’t offer the audience much help in following the narrative – they are difficult enough to read on the printed page. Rarely did anything expressed in visual terms flow comfortably with the music.