Charlottenburger Chaussee 109
13597 Berlin
030 3325772
marian@ich.ms
Wagner's opera about the Minnesinger torn between earthly and heavenly love is one of the works that has shaped the artistic identity of the house over decades - not least because of the famous Pilgrims' Chorus, which is the showpiece of our chorus. In Kirsten Harms' colourful production, which evokes the imagery of the Middle Ages, the members of the chorus appear effectively not only as penitents but also as a magnificently decked-out court company.
Image gallery
Ain Anger als Landgraf Hermann, Markus Brück als Wolfram, Peter Seiffert als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Ruth Tromboukis
Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Emma Bell als Venus, Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Emma Bell als Venus, Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Andreas Schager als Tannhäuser, der Chor der Deutschen Oper BerlinBettina Stöß
Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Ain Anger als Landgraf HermannBettina Stöß
Peter Seiffert als Tannhäuser, Petra-Maria Schnitzer als ElisabethBettina Stöß
u. a. Clemens Bieber als Walther von der Vogelweide, Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gideon Poppe als Heinrich der Schreiber, Andrew Harris als Reinmar von Zweter, Emma Bell als Elisabeth, Albert Pesendorfer als Landgraf Hermann; Chor der De
u. a. Peter Seiffert als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Emma Bell als Elisabeth, Albert Pesendorfer als Landgraf HermannBettina Stöß
u. a. Emma Bell als ElisabethBettina Stöß
Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Emma Bell als ElisabethBettina Stöß
Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Emma Bell als ElisabethBettina Stöß
Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Andreas Schager als TannhäuserBettina Stöß
Markus Brück als Wolfram von Eschenbach, Andreas Schager als Tannhäuser, Emma Bell als ElisabethBettina Stöß
Andreas Schager als Tannhäuser, Emma Bell als Venus, ElisabethBettina Stöß
- Conductor: Axel Kober / John Fiore
- Director: Kirsten Harms
With
Tobias Kehrer, Clay Hilley / Klaus Florian Vogt, Thomas Lehman / Samuel Hasselhorn, Camilla Nylund / Elisabeth Teige a. o.
About the work
Repelled by the dispassion of the Wartburg society of minnesingers, Tannhäuser, a singer-knight, removes to the interior of the Venusberg in search of fulfilment. Eventually his longing for Elisabeth leads him to leave again.
Back at the Wartburg castle, Tannhäuser takes part in a singing contest whose theme is the nature of love, but when he sings that love is ideally about sensual satisfaction, he is cast out and sent to Rome to seek papal absolution. He returns from Rome without the hoped-for indulgence and resolves to return to the Venusberg. Then a miracle occurs and he finds redemption after all.
Of all Richard Wagner’s operas, this is arguably the one most closely associated with the composer’s own biography and his conception of himself as an artist.
The tale of the song contest in the Wartburg castle contains all the themes common to Romantic conflict in art: the quest for social acceptance on the one hand pitted against a questioning of conventions on the other; the search for sensual fulfilment – and its irreconcilability with an idealised, de-sexualised concept of womanhood; and not least the conflict between self-expression in life as in art and the guilt engendered by this egomania.
About the production
In her production for the Deutsche Oper Berlin Kristen Harms focuses on the complicated relationship between Tannhäuser and Elisabeth, a young Thuringian noblewoman, who represents the ideal of pure, pristine love.
Harms sees TANNHÄUSER as “a tale of two people, each with two souls in their breast”. This accounts for her casting of a single singer to play both Elisabeth and Venus, who fuse at the end of the opera into a single person, one who has found redemption.
As for Tannhäuser, Harms presents him and his mild-mannered friend Wolfram von Eschenbach as two character sides of the same coin.
By the same token the Venusberg, Tannhäuser’s abode at the start of the opera, is deemed by Harms to be “not a den of vice but a realm in which wish, insistence and desire are interwoven in a knot of libidinous fulfilment.”
The story is told against a backdrop of tableaux that draw on illustrations found in texts of the High Middle Ages yet also incorporate a touchstone to the present day.
- 4 hours / two breaks
Additional information
Romantic opera in three actsFirst performed on 19th October, 1845 in DresdenPremiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 30th November 2008
Introduction (in German language): 45 minutes before beginning; Rang-Foyer
Participating artists
Axel Kober (Musikalische Leitung)
Kirsten Harms (Inszenierung)
Bernd Damovsky (Bühne, Kostüme)
Inga Timm (Mitarbeit Kostüm)
Silvana Schröder (Choreografie)
Jeremy Bines (Chöre)
Tobias Kehrer (Landgraf Hermann)
Clay Hilley (Tannhäuser)
Thomas Lehman (Wolfram von Eschenbach)
Kangyoon Shine Lee (Walther von der Vogelweide)
Michael Bachtadze (Biterolf)
Jörg Schörner (Heinrich der Schreiber)
Gerard Farreras (Reinmar von Zweter)
Camilla Nylund (Venus, Elisabeth)
Lilit Davtyan (Hirt)
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin (Chöre)
Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin (Orchester)
