All the World’s a Stage: In the revival of Tim Albery’s ‘Tannhäuser’, Michael Fuller sees theatre observing itself

This staging sets before its audience representations of the theatre in which it is sitting, in an increasingly ruinous state from act to act. In locating Wagner’s ‘Art-work’ amid these ruins, it immediately invites its viewers to reflect both on the theatrical experience itself, and on the extent to which it may prove transformative of the context in which it is placed. Whether or not Albery’s Konzept is ultimately capable of capturing all the dramatic tensions of Tannhäuser, the images which he sets before us are highly thought-provoking, and in the short time since the premiere of this production they have also become disturbingly prophetic, in ways which Wagner could scarcely have imagined.