ROCG: Tannhauser 28.x.2017

[DracoM]

Could I be right in assuming this is a recording of the 2015/16 season production?

All I can say - 15 or so minutes in - is that IMO neither Tannhauser nor Elisabeth sound as if they are going to make it to the end of Act 1, let alone the rest of the evening. It's fiendishly demanding, yes, but.....Crumbs.
Band in cracking form, pace good, but..........

[Cockney Sparrow]

I'm not listening (saw this production live , but maybe not this run / this exact cast). Wait for Christian Gerhaher - pure poetry in song - a great artist...

[Conchis]

Could I be right in assuming this is a recording of the 2015/16 season production?

All I can say - 15 or so minutes in - is that IMO neither Tannhauser nor Elisabeth sound as if they are going to make it to the end of Act 1, let alone the rest of the evening. It's fiendishly demanding, yes, but.....Crumbs.
Band in cracking form, pace good, but..........

Tannhauser is role which has only very occasionally been castable in the 170 or so years of the opera's existence.

The most recent acceptable exponent of the role was the premuturely deceased Johann Botha. He was the only singer who could perform the role on stage without flagging and without inviting accusations that he was merely 'a baritone with a bit on top.' That's not to say he sang with unfailingly beautiful tone - that would be asking far too much of anyone.

If you go to see/hear Tannhauser in 2017, you are going to hear an indequate singer in the central role: fact.


So: if you want to hear this opera done well, stick to your Melchior 78s, or - at a push - the 1971 Solti Decca recording with a young and fresh-voiced (if still far from ideal) Rene Kollo.

[antongould]

Could I be right in assuming this is a recording of the 2015/16 season production?

All I can say - 15 or so minutes in - is that IMO neither Tannhauser nor Elisabeth sound as if they are going to make it to the end of Act 1, let alone the rest of the evening. It's fiendishly demanding, yes, but.....Crumbs.
Band in cracking form, pace good, but..........

Just caught the start - so far - but as you say DracoM the Band seems in cracking form ....

[kernelbogey]

Could I be right in assuming this is a recording of the 2015/16 season production?

All I can say - 15 or so minutes in - is that IMO neither Tannhauser nor Elisabeth sound as if they are going to make it to the end of Act 1, let alone the rest of the evening. It's fiendishly demanding, yes, but.....Crumbs.
Band in cracking form, pace good, but..........

Well... just tuned in (thanks to this thread) half an hour or so from the end, and Seiffert's still going and seems to be hitting the notes ok....

Maybe: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all"?

[DracoM]

But for me he just ISN'T hitting the notes - he's swooping up and down, vibrato all over the shop, forcing and shouting and hectoring, and sounds in trouble the whole time. I'm still listening. Yes, he's got stamina, but capacity to make me sympathise, he doesn't have. Compared to Gerhaler..........?

I love the opera, seen it several times, but I'm sticking with it out of loyalty and gritted teeth rather then liking.

[vinteuil]

Tannhauser is role which has only very occasionally been castable in the 270 or so years of the opera's existence.
.

... nope, never heard of the 1747 version of Tannhauser. I might've liked it.




.

[Conchis]

But for me he just ISN'T hitting the notes - he's swooping up and down, vibrato all over the shop, forcing and shouting and hectoring, and sounds in trouble the whole time. I'm still listening. Yes, he's got stamina, but capacity to make me sympathise, he doesn't have. Compared to Gerhaler..........?

I love the opera, seen it several times, but I'm sticking with it out of loyalty and gritted teeth rather then liking.

Not a fair comprison, as the part of Wolfram is gracefully written for a different voice type (as you know). Wolfram is a terrible stick of a character and wholly uninteresting but it is one of Wagner's few substantial baritone roles.

The opera is not a success in any of its various versions (something that the composer himself seemed to acknoweldge, although he didn't live long enough to rework it a final time). It is also (even) more susceptible than other Wagner operas to the tricks that previal in Regietheater - the Covent Garden production (by Tim Albery) I remember as partiuclarly grey and monotone, although it had some good choreography during the Bacchanal.

[DracoM]

OK, accept a lot of that. Thx for clarification. Maybe it was my huge disappointment after a carp day that so sharpened the pen.

[Conchis]

OK, accept a lot of that. Thx for clarification. Maybe it was my huge disappointment after a carp day that so sharpened the pen.

Hmmm.....wonder if you've ever heard John Treleaven?

[DracoM]

Nope.

[Conchis]

Nope.

Then you've done well. He exemplifies the kind of 'he'll do...just' singer that is routinely handed the heldentenor roles even though he is embarrassingly inadequate to their demands. Alhtough well outside his comfort zone in Tannhauser, I've heard Seiffert sing decently in the lyrical Wagner roles.

Personally, I'd sooner hear someone like Peter Wedd - Tristan in Longborough's last T&I - than someone like Treleaven, even though he has the wrong kind of voice for this role (though that wasn't such a problem in a smaller house like Longborough). But I doubt if Wedd will ever attempt Tannhauser if he wants to preserve his voice.

[Richard Tarleton]

Hmmm.....wonder if you've ever heard John Treleaven?

Peter Sieffert sang a lovely (I thought) Tannhauser in the RFH in 2003, with Zurich Opera.... (I didn't hear the perf. under discussion)....and a ditto Walter, a year or two later - great in the lyrical roles as you say....

[Bryn]

Here are a few comments following the first broadcast of this recording:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?15182-Tannhauser-stand-in-at-ROH&p=560940#post560940