DVD: 1982 Met Tannhäuser
This Metropolitan opera 1982 production of Tannhäuser is, for once, rather easily described: It is quite simply traditional from A to Z, aiming at realistically and meticulously depicting the story of Tannhäuser exactly as stated in the libretto. The team of Otto Schenk and Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, responsible for staging virtually all of Wagner operas at the Metropolitan Opera do what they are reknowned of doing: A Tannhäuser I would not have been surprised to see 100 years previously in Bayreuth.
Detractors will call this an opera museum, admirers will call it a staging faithfully to the intentions of the composers. Your choice. However, regardless of tastes, I suspect most will agree that the setting of the third act is simply stunning.
Of the singers Tatiana Troyanos lush Venus (she looks great as well) and Bernd Weikls beautifully sung Wolfram stand out.
Eva Marton is heard in her rather short prime as an Elisabeth with refreshingly punch, though she has always been a stand-up-and-sing performer. Richard Cassilly is disappointing as a stiff and vocally strained Tannhäuser, though as most will know it is a virtually impossible part to sing.
Engaged and brisk performance from James Levine and the orchestra.
Wagner does not get more traditional than this.
Arrival of the guests in Wartburg:
Richard Casilly: 2
Tatiana Troyanos: 4-5
Eva Marton: 4
Bernd Weikl: 4-5
John Macurdy: 4
Schenks production: 3
James Levine: 4-5
Overall impression: 3
Posted by 18gianni79 on YouTube
Posted by mostly opera... 
A misguided 'Macbeth'; a superb 'Tannhauser'; The Met as it shouldn't be -- and as it shouldDecember 8, 1982
By Thor Eckert Jr.
Anew production at the Metropolitan Opera is at the very
least a costly undertaking. Last season, two of those undertakings paid off
memorably in artistic terms - Otto Schenk's superb staging of Offenbach
This year, the first new production of the season was
Mozart's ''Idomeneo,'' staged and designed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and received
with justifiable acclaim. Now, however, the house has allowed on its stage a
production of Verdi's ''Macbeth'' that should never have gotten past the
talking and preliminary design stage. (On Dec. 18 it will be aired nationally
on the radio - check local listings.)
Sir Peter Hall, the noted stage director, was in charge of
the action, and John Bury was in charge of the designs. Together they put Peter
Shaffer's ''Amadeus'' on stage to well-nigh universal critical celebration. But
neither seems to have a notion of what opera staging requires. Mr. Bury's sets
are a series of hung drops poorly detailed and essentially unlit by Gil
Wechsler. They are ugly and ill-proportioned for the singers on stage. Sir
Peter's direction seems to lack common sense, and in several scenes theatrical
instincts seem lacking.
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The production evidently attempted to give a modern audience
the feeling of the Paris Paris
By the fourth performance, many of the reported sillier
things had been changed. But one was still always aware of trapdoors, wires for
the flying (yes, flying) witches, and all the other mechanisms employed for the
so-called effects.
Fewer jobs at City Hall - one way Flynn can begin to arrest
the deficit
How does such an evening come to pass? Why did no one at the
Met say, ''This will not do''? New
York
The ''Boheme,'' ''Hoffmann,'' and ''Idomeneo'' meet this
requirement. The directors involved are brilliant stagers of opera. Mr. Hall's
record, however, is primarily theatrical, as is John Dexter's - he used to be
director of production at the Met and is responsible for several dour Met
stagings of Verdi operas. It is clear that good theatrical values do not work
in opera without some concessions to the nature of the art form, which have not
been made here.
The music contains the kernels from which the dramatic
action must be unfolded. Sir Peter and Mr. Dexter fight that music all the
time. Singing into a 3,800-seat theater demands entirely different body
language than acting in an 800- to 1,200-seat house, but the myth today is that
contemporary theatrical techniques can be applied wholesale to the opera stage.
It does not work.
We have great singing actors around, but their style is
inextricably related to the process of singing. They are not Royal Shakespeare
or Stanislavsky thespians. Many more of our finest singers are not very good as
actors. Sherrill Milnes, who sings the title role in this production, falls in
the latter category. Sir Peter did very little to try to make his lurching and
staggering convey much. On the other hand, his work with Renata Scotto as Lady
Macbeth was scaled to a tiny theater: Seen through opera glasses, her facial
expressions were varied, interesting, but unspontaneous.
Mr. Milnes is in excess of six feet tall. Miss Scotto
measures in at not much over five feet. Side by side, they were quite a
mismatch. John Bury's sets featured doors and archways nearly as high as the
proscenium and furniture that seemed to come up to Miss Scotto's chin, dwarfing
her presence.
Vocally, the performance I attended - the fourth in a run of
11 - was spotty. The dramatic soprano role of Lady Macbeth was never anything
Miss Scotto, a lyric sorpano best suited to lighter singing, should have
undertaken, and the Met is wrong to have encouraged her. Even her lyric soprano
performance falls far short of its former brilliance. Based on the 1973
revival, a recording, and this performance, I feel Mr. Milnes appears not to
offer a great Macbeth, despite his justified stature as one of the leading
Verdians of the day. Giuseppe Giacomini was vocally out of sorts as Macduff;
Ruggero Raimondi was a solid Banquo.
The decision to include the mediocre ballet music was
perhaps the first desperate flaw. Stuart Hopps's lurching, hopping, cavorting
choreography was a consistent cause for laughter, even at the fourth
performance. In the pit, Mr. Levine led a superb performance that turned this
score into something major, and monumental. But as music director, he should
have used his authority to see to it that such productions never get on this
stage. Tannhauser
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Happily, TV audiences will see the Met the way it should be,
in one of its finest productions of a Wagner opera, ''Tannhauser.'' The
performance of Dec. 20 will be taped for airing March 23, 1983, on PBS - check
local listings.
The production, directed and designed by that superb team of
Mr. Schenk and Mr. Schneider-Siemssen, has been discussed numerous times in
these pages. The current cast is a fine one, though it features neither of the
singers who made the first night so fine - James McCracken in the title role,
or Leonie Rysanek, the definitive Elisabeth of the day. The only holdover,
Bernd Weikl, is the finest Wolfram imaginable. Tatiana Troyanos is the
voluptuous Venus, and Met newcomer Fritz Hubner offers an imposing if rather
uneven Hermann.
Eva Marton sets the entire evening on a superb level with
her electrifying Elisabeth, proving yet again that she is a splendid addition
to the Met roster. Richard Cassilly is slated to sing Dec. 20 but was
indisposed the night I attended. His alternate, Edward Sooter, revealed an
ample voice in his first house try at the title role. He also showed some
genuine style and tremendous promise.
This score has always brought out the very best in Mr.
Levine. He makes ''Tannhauser'' a thing of visceral excitement and tremendous
emotional intensity. His work is the icing on the cake of a grandiose Met-style
show - the way the Met should be, rather than the ''Macbeth,'' which is the way
it should never be.
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