Rebirth of Venus

Richard Wagner was determined to make a name for himself in Paris. So when the Paris Opera rejected his latest work, Tristan und Isolde, Wagner dusted off his Tannhaeuser, which had been produced in Dresden 16 years earlier, and Frenchified it. He wrote new music for a ballet in the first scene and reworked the character and music of the love goddess Venus in his best chromatic, post-Tristan style.

For nearly a century the Paris Tannhaeuser remained the most frequently performed version of the opera. Audiences loved the voluptuous new bacchanale; sopranos preferred to sing the more dramatic music of Venus. But eventually purists objected to the musical schizophrenia in the work, and came to prefer the earlier Dresden Tannhaeuser. All the recordings, too, used the Dresden score until last week, when London released the first LPs of the Paris version--a premiere of sorts.

The recording is a knockout, fully comparable to London's history-making Ring cycle. Conductor Georg Solti, today's top conductor of Wagner, makes the opera brilliant and unabashedly grand. As Venus, Mezzo-Soprano Christa Ludwig seethes with eroticism, suggesting a world of impossible sexuality. Soprano Helga Dernesch as Elisabeth, Wagner's virginal opposite to Venus, is the perfect embodiment of pinched Victorian purity. Best of all is Tenor Rene Kollo, a German pop singer metamorphosed into a Heldentenor, who sings Tannhaeuser with a gleaming tone, power, and a dramatic force unequaled since Lauritz Melchior.

qedRobert T. Jones

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