WIELAND WAGNER'S 'TANNHAEUSER' STAGING UNLIKE ANY OTHER OF THIS WORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000400010019-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 26, 2000
• Sequence Number: 19
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For. Relezs_e2000/05/24 CIA-RDP75-0
BAYREUTH `NOVELTY
Wieland Wa ner s anntiaeuser' Staging
f9 Work
Jnlike Any Other o
By HENRY PLEASANTS
BAYBEUTII. has been detectable before, but
HAT Wieland` Wagner's never so vividly,. took t s pro
e
new "Tannhaeuser" wonldlduction to point rq) tile abil-
bP unlike any other "Tann-'. itd that the future of Bayreuth
a foregone conclusion Not so another artist t1}e edunterpart to
one was the liianner in~i his own geniis as.a dit&tor.
f
oreg
which the new production would Lobking back over his previous
differ from the tradition. productions, ogle reca what Wie-
"Tannhaeuser" belo with _ land has always gotten hin?self
"Die Meistersinger" a 1Lohen-? Into pictorial trouble at thxt mo
df Wagnerl ment when li Yata no longer do,
r
t
"
y
ego
in that ca
in
Klingsor's 'castle, for
gr opera least separable frt details the trick" I
of time and space. Young Wie- instance, hag always been a blem-
land likes to get at thPh~spirituall ish in his otherwise exemplary
and philosophic substa7lCe_of his' production of "garsifal." The
randfatlier's works, to, doncen- huts in the first acts of "Die
g, i
trate on those ele1~S~ that Walkuere" and "Siegfried" and,
transcend locality #n19,, Period. Isolde's aPeFtment aboard ship
Thus far he has tack ,those shave been similarly unsuccessful.
works in which locality nd pe- I U n short, Wieland is embarrassed
riod are the least itfl 'taut-- when more is required than the
"Der Ring des NA,, lgen,,, suggestion, of an image,
"Tristan and Isolde" So it with 41annhaeuser,"
.:..~..~. ., m. .......a .oy???? P a aa~u aaict ail
Robert xala,i
F W_
He ha therto ova a the i Cifi.F of ts._ TJae Vgnusberg is a q
others. f4 a Meiste er, I ~lPi ~d? Wagner.
. &epulsive faflure, and the Hall of j - t*
which is hardly separable from big a s ilted,and rather point- ice
medieval Nuremberg, he t e ' f t to ss ca eature. Only in the last was, to be leautifut musi-
"
Lohen act, whre he can escape into cat perfori !n a with Ramon
Rudolf Hartmann; and
grin," hardly less tied to they d ,rkn aloes Wieland come plc-'yinay asTBA k~aeuser, Gre Brou-
Middle Ages, if not to the Scheldt, 1 4orially into his own. There, with enstein as Elisabeth, Dietrich
left to his brother Wolfgang. j the 11 hts out
dim spots and Ischer-DI :au a Wolfram and
h
,
e
With "Tannhaeuser," however, hei the s'Id ts, he can work easily%ither1JOSefz Reilb yth or Eugen
has finally come to grips with the ;'in rho 7YlePium he really under -t Jochummconducting. But one has
problem. He has dope it with the stands ` ez movement and group-'Iheard" ether perform' bes of com-
ingenious disregard for tradition ping of actors on the stage. parafae "excellence;
characteristic of ever thing he In this,' as always, he is ma ,6-1 That one was reminded, above
does. nificent. And this is probably ali'tall things, of what 'a Wonderful
Changes that matters. For the effect of !old olserT"this is can be attribut-
nY his stage direction throughoutei~ d?ily to Wieland Wag-
Gone is Thuringia, gone the' the production is to render inteIii- ner a direction.
Venusbelg, gone the wooded ed vales gible and comm tive not only. Wh1ch? s true of almost every-
and the other familiar settings the action but the music. It thing else in the new Bayreuth.
'
haeuser
"T
ann
d with
associate for more than a hundred years.
The Venusberg becomes a sym-
bolic shell, the bacchanale a col-
lective exercise in bumps 811(1
grinds. The Hall of song is a
stylized expression of court regi-
mentation, and the exteriors mere
studies in ambiguity.
As usual with Wieland Wag-
ner, it is impossible not to ad-
mire the achievement even while
finding it misguided. One may
find all or most it`'iu*rong, but
even when wmng.?-.WleIand is
magnificent.
-
Certainly not,allq
* ,:>oht1a*enePraaulriiy
haeuser" is vron-
,speaking, the direction is su$erb
and the settings awful. This di-
viding line between VVieland-
Wagner the stage director and
Wieland Wagner the regisseur
STATINTL
Approved For Release 2000/05/24: CIA-RDP75-00001 R000400010019-3