Love Actually: Christof Loy’s new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ and Philipp Stölzl’s revival of ‘Parsifal’ prompt Michael Fuller to reflect on religion in our time

Reviews of Tannhäuser, directed Loy, conducted Albrecht, Amsterdam, 2019; Parsifal, directed Stölzl, conducted Runnicles, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2019.

July 2019, Volume 13, Number 2, 78–82.

Christof Loy’s new production of Tannhäuser at the Dutch National Opera is the first seen there since Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s, in 2007. A single set is used throughout: a hall-cum-dance studio, with bars along the walls. In the rear a large archway gives into a white room from which further doors lead to dressing rooms. (In Act II a red curtain covers this archway for the song contest.) A piano centre-stage features in all three acts. At the opening of the Act I Overture Tannhäuser sits at it, immersed in composition. Taking a cue from the troubled history of the 1861 Paris staging of this work, ballet dancers recalling the paintings of Dégas spill onto the stage during the Bacchanal, along with Venus as the maîtresse de ballet, and a number of beaux in evening dress (some of whom, it later emerges, are Tannhäuser’s knightly friends). Dancers throw themselves (and are thrown) at one another, in the course of which exercise many shed all or part of their clothing – although this choreography is carried out more with brisk efficiency than eroticism.