And I am reluctant to lay too much of this at the feet of the conductor, Donald Runnicles, inasmuch as it is characteristic of so much of the orchestra’s playing in recent seasons, cruelly exposed in this music. There are three contemporary conductors I’ve heard of whom I have reason to think might pull significantly more from the Met band in Wagner: Christian Thielemann, Daniele Gatti, and Manfred Honeck. A fourth, the Met’s former Music Director, Fabio Luisi, led a highly respectable Ring not too long ago. For various reasons, it is unlikely we’ll hear anything more from any of these men with the company. Or from Kirill Petrenko, cozily ensconced in Berlin. The Met’s present Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, has at times (Act 3 of Holländer; Act 1, once past the Prelude, of Lohengrin) shown Wagnerian mettle. But then, he’s the one who’s filled in and curated the orchestra we’ve got. And any conductor would have faced the same choice given to Runnicles: throw down your baton and stalk out, or hold the orchestra down below even the current default level. The proportions of a reading, after all, cannot too flagrantly violate their relationship with its weakest vital link. See below.

The physical production: I’ve always liked this second-act set (The Hall of the Minstrels), handsome and well conformed to the staging requirements. The one for the outer acts is a unit affair that must allow, with suitable changes in the set pieces and lighting, for an efficient scene change from Venusberg to Valley of the Wartburg in the little time allotted. This it does. It doesn’t fully capture the release from the hot, oppressive atmosphere of the Venus scene to the open, verdant brightness of the Valley, and with its steep, uneven-looking rake it gives moments of anxiety for the dancers and awkwardness for the piping shepherd. But in terms of a sense of place and an overall mood, it suffices. Nothing stands in the way of a compelling realization of music and action, or draws the eye to something outside the opera’s specified boundaries. The same can be said of the sensible staging, which accepts the conventions (e. g., the outraged minstrels with swords drawn and poised at ready for many ensemble minutes) and provides a logical framework for the action, the rest being left up to the thespic talents of the individual performers.

Venus and Tannhäuser: We meet them together, in the Midearth realm to which she and hers have been banished. Venus speaks first, as Tannhäuser starts from his dream of the earthly quotidian and of temporality—for Time itself has been lost to him. And this important character was lost to us, for Ekaterina Gubanova’s good mezzo voice has turned pallid in color, weak in volume, and infirm in support; she labored through her music. Oddly (and I don’t recall this from previous iterations of the production), her drab costuming and braided coiffure also presented the goddess of love and beauty in Hausfrau mode, which her physical acting did nothing to overcome. Opposite her was the Tannhäuser of Andreas Schager, whom we have met previously as the young Siegfried (see Siegfried at the Met, 5/24/19) and as the Max of the Pentatone recording of Der Freischütz, with Lise Davidsen (see the Lehmann/Freischütz article, 3/13/20). I have about concluded that for all the challenges, including those of sheer endurance, of Siegfried and Tristan, Tannhäuser is the toughest of the Wagner tenor roles, at least for many singers. From the three progressively heightened, progressively desperate verses of “Dir töne Lob” (it nearly always sounds better in its orchestral investiture in the Overture) and the sweaty exchanges with Venus that follow, through the durance of the Act 2 finale and on to the heavy demands of the Act 3 Narrative, it pounds ceaselessly on the passaggio, asking especially that inflected declamation be kept on the same perfect balance as that required of a lyrical bel cantist—gathered and sturdy without being squeezed or stiffened. Schager’s voice was none of those things, positive or negative. In his favor it can be said that he was the one principal to sing consistently loudly enough and that he endured, sounding no worse at the end than he had at the beginning. But the voice is far too loosely held, holding on to no sustained note below the upper G on any vowel except “i” without wavering, the open vowels in the vicinity of the break (they are frequent!) glaring mouthily. The timbre is not attractive except at a few of the softer junctures, and with such a structure he can seldom really shape a phrase. All told, the Venusberg Scene could hardly have been worse sung. A few lines from the male ensemble aside, the Wartburg Valley brought no improvement.