About the work
Richard Wagner's three-act opera, in full Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg, was premiered in 1845 at the Königliches Hoftheater Dresden with Wagner himself conducting. The work exists in two substantially different versions: the original Dresden version and the revised Paris version of 1861, which added a Venusberg bacchanal and earned a notorious hostile reception that ended after just three performances. Wagner continued revising the score for the rest of his life, remarking that he still owed the world a definitive Tannhäuser.
Plot
The knight and minnesinger Tannhäuser has spent a year in the Venusberg, the underground realm of the goddess Venus, given over to sensual pleasure. Wracked by guilt, he returns to the Wartburg court of Landgrave Hermann, where his former beloved Elisabeth has waited faithfully. At a song contest on the nature of love, Tannhäuser scandalously praises carnal desire and confesses his time with Venus, horrifying the assembled court. Banished, he makes a pilgrimage to Rome to seek absolution from the Pope, who declares forgiveness as impossible as his papal staff sprouting leaves. Tannhäuser returns in despair as Elisabeth dies praying for his soul. Messengers arrive with the Pope's staff, miraculously in bloom. Tannhäuser dies, redeemed by Elisabeth's sacrifice.
Cultural significance
Tannhäuser poses the central Wagnerian conflict between sacred and profane love in its sharpest form. The Pilgrims' Chorus and the Overture are concert-hall staples, and Elisabeth's Dich, teure Halle and Wolfram's Song to the Evening Star are beloved set pieces. The 1861 Paris scandal, allegedly orchestrated by the aristocratic Jockey Club—who traditionally arrived only after the first act and were outraged to find the ballet placed at the start—made Tannhäuser a cause célèbre of nineteenth-century operatic politics. Christian Thielemann's Bayreuth recordings and Sebastian Baumgarten's controversial 2011 staging exemplify the range of contemporary approaches.