The World of Opera

                                        Synopsis

OVERTURE
 

This is one of the most popular pieces ever written for "pops" concerts. It is based partly on the Pilgrim's Chorus, with which it opens and closes, and partly on the contrasting music of the orgies in the court of Venus. It thus summarizes the theme of the whole story—the battle of sacred and profane love foi the soul of the hero, Tannhauser.

Act 1

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In the original, or "Dresden," version of the opera, the overture comes to a full close. In the "Paris" version, which was mounted sixteen years later, the curtain rises without interruption for applause, on a scene of great voluptuousness in the court of Venus—a scene that Wagner revidsed extensively for the occasion, bringing to it the musical powers greatly matured through the composition, in the intervening уеаrs, of Lohengrin, over half of the Ring cycle, and Tristan und Isolde. This court of Venus had its being in the Thuringian mountains, where the spring goddess, Holda, was supposed to reign. The poetry of mythology, however, quite rightly disregards the mundane logic of historians, and Holda is easily equated with Venus, the goddess of love.
 

At the moment, with the amiably distracting assistance of sirens, naiads, nymphs and bacchantes, she as trying to make things attractive foe Heinrich Tannhauser, a more or less historical German knight who was also a singer and composer. Henry has deserted the court of Landgrave Hermann, ruler of Thuringia, to spend some time at the more glamorous spot he is inhabiting now. But he has grown tired of the pagan rites and tells the goddess so. Despite all her pleadings, Tannhauser calls on Mary, and the whole wicked court vanishes.
 

The scene is transformed at once into the valley of the Wartburg. Tannhauser listens to a shepherd boy sing sweetly and innocently (oddly enough, about the goddess Holda, who, in his mythology, is a good girl), and he greets a group of pilgrims chanting on their way to Rome. From the distance, then, comes the sound of hunting horns, and presently Tannhauser is cordially welcomed by the Landgrave himself and a party of hunters, all old friends. They urge him to return, for they miss bis singing. At first he refuses. Then his particular old friend and comrade-in-arms-and-song Wolfram tells him that the Landgrave's daughter Elisabeth has been brokenhearted since his departure. In a noble melody Wolfram urges Tannhauser to return, and he is joined in these hospitable sentiments by the Landgrave himself and all the knights. Warmed by this reception—and by the thought of the beloved Elisabeth —Tannhauser is won over, and the act closes with hunting calls as the whole party leaves for the castle of the Wartburg.

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