Elisabeth's hand is the prize but the knights are so angry with Tannhauser's impurity that only Elisabeth's protection saves his life. He does but bursts into praise of eroticism in the contest of love songs held at the Hall of Song in Wartburg. Tannhauser (Peter Seiffert) is in thrall to the goddess Venus (Lioba Braun) but yearns to return to the mortal world and the peace and light embodied by his first love Elisabeth (Petra Maria Schnitzer). Comparisons to the Shakespearean productions Sir Peter Hall did at the Ahmanson a few years ago are inevitable. Director Ian Judge, a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, knows how to draw the most out of this material.

Very few Los Angelenos arrived fashionably late, maybe because the word was out that the former ballet, performed in Mark Doubleday's subtle lighting on a scarlet set with a cast who slowly stripped off their erotic scarlet costumes, was graphically sexual. Wagner acceded but insisted it remain at the beginning of the Opera, so infuriating the aristocracy who always arrived fashionably late that the opera had to close after three performances.

The Parisian Bacchanale which opens the opera was inserted in 1861 at the insistence of the French audience who adored ballet. The LA Opera's new production of Richard Wagner's Tannhauser is visually stunning and inventive with a cast whose German stars have the vocal weight and experience to inhabit the major roles.

This is the story of a man who could not make up his mind.-Laurence OlivierĪlthough the Olivier quote above came at the beginning of his film version of Hamlet, it applies equally to Tannhauser, the medieval knight torn between his erotic passion for the goddess Venus and his yearning for the light and peace embodied by his mortal love, Elisabeth.

La opera tannhauser cast