World Premiere Recording
JOHANN NESTROY (1801-1862) , CARL BINDER (1816-1860)
TANNHAUSER in 80 minutes - Opera parody
Robert Meyer, actor / singer
Neue Wiener Concert Schrammeln
NTSC
SUBTITLES: D / Eng / F
The Venusberg of the Viennese suburbs
“Tannhauser in 80 minutes” is more than just one of the dramatic opera parodies popular in the 18th century, above all among the general populace. It is the grounding of Wagnerian pathos on a Viennese scale. It has Viennese humour in place of leitmotifs, a victory for Schrammelmusik rather than a Minstrels’ Contest (Sangerkrieg) and a tavern in the suburbs substituting for the Venusgrotte (Venus’ Cave) . The key punchline in this witty entertainment is the banishing of Tannhauser from the Sangerhalle on the Wartburg to a stage “ … where opera of the future is cultivated / because that‘s the fastest way to ruin your voice.”
Johann Nestroy himself had a not insignificant career as an opera singer to look back on, and in this respect he knew exactly what he was writing about in 1857: Tannhauser rewritten as a one-man-show accompanied by a Schrammel quartet!
It was clearly a pleasure for Carl Binder, at that time musical director at the Carltheater and composer of stage music for a number of Nestroy works, to confront the then noble Wagnerians with unbeatable popular humour.
Incidentally, Nestroy’s Tannhauser was a box office success even before Wagner’s premiere in Vienna in 1859, which led to “ a merriment which was hard to contain” sweeping through the entire audience in parts of the performance of the original opera, as the major critic and anti-Wagnerian, Eduard Hanslick, reported.
Many a premiere subscriber was unable to believe their eyes when this opera parody was performed on the noble boards of the Wiener Burgtheater. However, the audience’s cheering approval at the end of the 80 minutes was unanimous and justified. Robert Meyer, the sole performer of all the main roles, shaped the evening in magnificent style, giving stunning performances as a naive and heroic Tannhauser, a buffoonish “Landgraf Purzl” complete with a very strong Viennese dialect, a warbling Wolfram von Dreschenbach, of course as Venus, Elisabeth, plus the entire male choir and fairy ballet. Meyer pulled out all the theatrical stops with technical bravura and instinctive comical timing.
This successful production moved to the Wiener Volksoper and, after numerous performances at the Burgtheater, is still pulling in the crowds.Robert Meyer, current director of the Volksoper, succeeds in filling his own theatre with sell-out crowds every night. Even for people who don’t speak German or the Viennese dialect this DVD comes with a hearty recommendation: it has been translated (subtitled) into English and French, thus ensuring a humorous evening of opera of a rather different kind. ( Phoenix Edition )
