Venus Envy: Matthew Rye feels the musical rewards make up for a so-so production in a very contemporary take on ‘Tannhäuser’

It might be claimed that no production of Tannhäuser could top that by Tobias Kratzer, currently in the Bayreuth rep. And Nuran David Calis’s staging for Wuppertal Oper can hardly be said to have done that; yet it manages to say something of its own about the work, even if one couldn’t always convincingly tie the action as shown to the text or dramaturgy. The director, a prize-winner in the field of spoken theatre and here seemingly tackling his first opera, sets the work in a present-day, multiracial neighbourhood.