Met’s Tannhaeuser coming to Victoria theatres
Oft-revised Wagner work features one of the most gruelling roles in all of opera
NEW YORK — Deep into the third act of Wagner’s Tannhaeuser, the title character sings the Rome Narrative, recounting his disastrous pilgrimage to ask the pope’s absolution for having dallied with Venus, goddess of love.
Coming near the end of a four-hour-long performance of one of the most gruelling roles in all of opera, it can tax the tenor to the point of exhaustion. Not Johan Botha.
“After a long night, that’s the easiest part for me,” he said in an interview at the Metropolitan Opera, where he will star in the HD broadcast of the work on Saturday.
That’s because, the 50-year-old South African tenor explained, the vocal line lies low, “basically for a bass-baritone, and that’s what I was when I first started singing. I still have those low notes.”
Instead, the tougher challenge for Botha is a relatively brief solo late in Act 2 when the medieval minstrel knight pleads for God’s forgiveness.
“That little aria,” he said, “if you don’t sing it lyrically like a Schubert song you quickly get in trouble. Because it has those fifth and seventh jumps going up and up. If you put too much down pressure on the low notes then you carry all the weight over to the high notes, and the thing is, you know, you blow your voice out.”
Has that ever happened to him in a performance? “It did,” he confesses with a shrug. “But then you just have to recover.”
Wagner devoted more time to revising Tannhaeuser than to most of his other operas.
After the première in Dresden, Germany, in 1845, he made several changes for Paris, where it premièred in 1861. The current Met production by Otto Schenk, dating from 1977, uses the “Paris Version” but includes further changes Wagner made for a Vienna revival in 1875.
Botha said Wagner never was completely satisfied with the results. “He basically rewrote the whole piece,” he said.
“He believed until his dying day that he owed the world a better Tannhaeuser.”
The major change Wagner made for Paris was to add a ballet, something that was considered essential for any opera performed there. He composed a bacchanal for the opening scene in the Venusberg — the only place in the opera where dancing made sense.
But a group of wealthy male patrons expected ballets to come during Act 2 so they could arrive late after dinner and still see the dancers (many of whom were their mistresses).
In protest, they created such an uproar that Wagner had to withdraw the work after the third performance.
Where to see it
The Met’s HD broadcast will be shown live in movie theatres around the world, including Cineplex Odeon Victoria and SilverCity, starting at noon on Saturday.