Tannhäuser in Paris

I write up Tannhäuser in Paris for the Indy, but what appeared in print was heavily cut. Here is the full version. (You can hear a broadcast of the show on France Musique on 9 February.)

It’s Christmas in Paris, and Venus saunters onto the Bastille stage in the first bars of Wagner’s overture, stark naked. While British audiences were shoehorned into endless Nutcrackers, the French capital hotly anticipated a season highlight in Robert Carsen’s new production of Tannhäuser, the Paris Opera’s first since 1984, which opened on 6 December – but the first performances were semi-staged due to a strike by stagehands. It wasn’t until later that the full monty was unfurled. And it was worth waiting for.

Re-settings of operas that actually work are rare, but the transformation of Tannhäuser into a radical artist creating a scandal succeeds because it enhances the work’s core issues: sex versus spirituality (or prudishness), progressive art versus the establishment. How appropriate, too, for Paris, the city of Manet – whose ‘Dejeuner sur l’herbe’ adorns the programme – and the territory where Tannhäuser caused a comparable scandal in 1861, albeit because the Jockey Club objected to the lack of a ballet in the second act.

The ballet appears, instead, right after the overture, in the Venusberg – the realm of the senses inhabited by the goddess of love – and this time the Jockey Club members wouldn’t have known what had hit them. The nude Venus, Tannhäuser’s model, drapes herself across a mattress while he paints her in a frenzy, aided and abetted by a crowd of male dancers who portray the wild, messy confluence of creativity and sex in an orgy of scarlet paint.

Act II’s song contest is transformed with great aplomb into a painting competition in a posh gallery; the artists’ songs introduce the unveiling of their paintings (which the audience never sees). Symbolism returns for Act III, when the conventional, uptight Elisabeth – who alone understands Tannhäuser’s art but is fatally wounded by his sexual betrayal – takes off her dress, lets down her hair and begins to merge with the image of Venus. Tannhäuser, refused absolution by the Pope, returns from his pilgrimage seeking the Venusberg instead, but now Elisabeth and Venus mingle as he learns to integrate their opposing qualities in his work. And with the final chorus comes Tannhäuser’s salvation: his canvas is hung among the most famous and scandalous nudes in the history of art.

The American heldentenor Stephen Gould is a towering hunk as Tannhäuser, his voice as powerful as his presence. His Elisabeth is Eva-Maria Westbroek, her ‘Dich, teure Halle’ delivered from the front of the stalls with a heart-lifting combination of natural radiance and vocal ease. Exquisite richness of tone from the mezzo-soprano Béatrice Uria-Monzon as Venus and superb performances from Franz-Josef Selig as Hermann and the substantial chorus.

Most unforgettable, though, is Matthias Goerne as Tannhäuser’s friend Wolfram, portraying a generous yet introverted soul tortured by unrequited love for Elisabeth. Goerne’s magical phrasing, charcoal-soft baritone and gut-wrenching inwardness make him unique at the best of times, but it would have been worth the journey to Paris just to hear him sing Wolfram’s Song to the Evening Star. Meanwhile under Seiji Ozawa’s mercurial baton, the orchestral playing was full of élan, and proved unfailingly sensitive to the singers. Christmas crackers for grown-ups don’t come much better than this.

Another fruitless nod for Tod

The British 'honours' system appears a closed book at the best of times and probably ought to be thrown clean out of the window; but while we're stuck with it, it continues to cause controversy. Pliable at the Overgrown Path has an excellent post about the veteran British conductor Vernon Handley, who despite having done more to further the cause of British music than probably anybody else alive is still one of the few older UK conductors to be left without a knighthood. This despite a high-profile campaign a year or two ago at Gramophone with a petition named 'Nod for Tod' (we all call Handley 'Tod' for short).
Talking it through with musician friends who are as annoyed about this as I am, we looked at a list of top British conductors and came to one uncomfortable conclusion. Most of 'em went to Cambridge. Tod didn't (he attended Oxford!).

Quite why Cambridge should produce so many successful conductors is a moot point, because you do not learn how to conduct there.

The big exception to the rule is (Sir) Simon Rattle, the best of the lot, who has left the country.

UPDATE: Friday 4 Jan, 9.15pm - Julian Lloyd Webber had an article in yesterday's Telegraph about why there are so few successful British conductors, arguing that the top jobs here always go to foreigners. He's right. He's also right in saying that it's because young conductors are not properly nurtured here.

I reckon that that also explains why the Cambridge brigade gets on. Given that there is no systematic programme for good, serious, high-level musical education for young children in Britain beyond four or five specialist schools and some well-meaning Saturday joints, and nothing except keen amateurdom is seen as desirable in any case (fine in itself, but not for professionals), a would-be anglomaestro can only fall back on experience gained through personal initiative. In Cambridge, any kid who has the drive to do it can book a chapel, put together a student band, stand in front of them and wave the baton. Bingo: experience. This doesn't make them technically adept. Some have gone on to better training chez Musin or Panula. Others haven't. Look at the pedigrees of our resident orchestras' bosses, Jurowski, Salonen and Gergiev, and don't be surprised that we can't compete.

Tasmin plays La Gitana

Here's a little something to brighten your day: Kreisler, played by Tasmin Little and John Lenehan, with strings attached.

And mad props to...

...Clive Davis in The Times for giving this blog an extremely kind plug in the new year special round-up entitled '2008: Make me a polymath'. Cheers!

Happy new year!

Happy new year, everyone!

Meet my big event of 2008: Hungarian Dances will be out on 6 March in hardback, then in paperback on 7 August. Expect much celebration on JDCMB featuring Bartok, Dohnanyi, Kodaly, not to mention Brahms, Ravel and a lot of fabulous Gypsy fiddling.

A brand-new recording by Philippe Graffin to complement the novel is currently in the planning stages. Watch this space.