Gerhard Auer

If you do business with the abyss that opens up in front of you, you do “abyssness”. But how long can this go on and at what price? Like every morning, a farmer enters his farm, but now a black hole opens up in the middle of it. Not only does his pistol shot echo in it, but all his garbage can also be disposed of in this way. He quickly makes money by accepting the garbage from the entire surrounding area.

David Alden's production of Wagner's grand romantic opera was recorded at the National Theatre in Munich, with Bayerische Staatsoper, in September 1994. Shot over three days by leading opera director Brian Large, this recording benefits from the ideal technical conditions made possible by a closed session. Alden, one of the most iconoclastic interpreters of classical opera, stirs up the visionary, erotic, and archetypal elements in Wagner's work. The cold, forbidding aspect of the stylized and predominantly monochrome sets and costumes by Roni Toren and Buki Shiff manifests the strait-jacket of tradition from which Tannhäuser seeks to free himself in this powerful opera.