[Met Performance] CID:5870



Tannh?user
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, February 21, 1887




Tannh?user (33)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Tannh?user
Anton Schott

Elisabeth
Therese Herbert-F?rster

Wolfram
Wilhelm Basch

Venus
Lilli Lehmann

Hermann
Emil Fischer

Walther
Max Alvary

Heinrich
Otto Kemlitz

Biterolf
Max Heinrich

Reinmar
Emil S?nger

Shepherd
Georgine Von Januschowsky


Conductor
Anton Seidl







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times:

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE

There was enough in the performance of "Tannh?user" to interest and stir the audience gathered at the Metropolitan Opera House last evening, but it cannot be said that the music-drama was as impressively rendered as in the earlier part of the season. This will be readily understood when mention is made of the fact that Herr Robinson, whose Wolfram is one of the happiest lyric efforts beheld in German opera for years, was out of the cast, and that Frau Seidl-Krauss, to whose Elisabeth people had grown accustomed, was replaced by Frau Herbert-Foerster; moreover, Tannh?user is not one of the characters in which Herr Schott is seen to most advantage. "Tannh?user," however, is effective in a dozen different ways, and is not wholly dependent for success upon the principal artists concerned in its rehearsal. And it must be noted, too, that if foregoing performances of the opera had not made the listeners yesterday a trifle fastidious they would probably have waxed quite enthusiastic over the night's work. In the [first] scene with Venus, and in the concerted number with which the first act closes, Herr Schott was particularly satisfactory. His final scene was also striking, and throughout the evening the German tenor revealed no lack of either warmth or animation. Herr Basch's voice and singing in the septet were both disappointing, and the timbre of Herr Robinson's tones and his mastery of cantilena were sadly missed at this stage of events in the "bards' contest." The German baritone did better, and sang Wolfram's definition of love in excellent style. Frau Herbert-Foerster was most acceptable in the duet,of course, most apparent. Herr Fischer as the Landgrave was as good as ever: he never, indeed, rendered the arioso prefacing the battle of the bards with a richer quality of tone, or with more genuine feeling or more artistic phrasing. The remaining parts were divided between Fr?ulein Lehmann, (Venus,) Herr Alvary, (Walter,) and Herr Heinrich, (Bitterolf,) and were as efficiently sustained as in the past. The curtain was raised, as of old, after it had fallen on each act; no small proportion of the pleasure derived from the general representation was due in truth to the performers who sat before it - in other words, to the orchestra, under Herr Seidl's direction.



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