A Knight at the Circus: Barry Millington thrills to a powerful reworking of ‘Tannhäuser’ at the Bayreuth Festival

Reviews of Tannhäuser, directed Kratzer, conducted Gergiev, Bayreuth, 2019; Lohengrin, directed Sharon, conducted Thielemann, Bayreuth, 2019.

November 2019, Volume 13, Number 3, 63–70.

Unlike the Wartburg, which is a specific historical location in Thuringia and the site of the medieval minstrels’ contests, the Venusberg in Tannhäuser will be found in no gazetteer. Rather it is a place with the reputation of sexual excess, shunned by respectable society. In the modern age, where one sexual boundary after another has been crossed, it has become increasingly challenging for directors to represent a scenario that might still seem shocking. Tobias Kratzer and his team – Rainer Sellmaier (designer), Manuel Braun (video) and Konrad Kuhn (dramaturg) – approach it in a different way: their Venusberg is not a site of specifically sexual transgression, but a place that attracts drifters, social rebels and others who, having no substantial stake in society, choose to live outside its boundaries.