What is this I don't even....It was conceived in the 1840s as a romantic opera set in the middle ages. So its shift to 1940s Nazi Germany with depictions of mass murder in gas chambers, rape and execution at the hands of SS henchmen was at the very least jarring.
But Düsseldorf opera house's take on Wagner's Tannhäuser proved to be so traumatic for some audience members that they had to be taken to hospital. Others slammed doors and booed as they stormed out of the theatre mid-performance.
The production, by director Burkhard Kosminski has now been unceremoniously pulled, with the theatre admitting it had been too much of a "psychological and physical strain" for many opera goers. For "artistic reasons", Kosminski steadfastly refused to change the most offensive scenes after an initial barrage of complaints following the opening night on Saturday.
The director's Nazi theme – including scenes of people dying in gas chambers, being shot and raped, and of members of a family having their heads shaved ahead of their execution – had been feted as one of the highlights of celebrations for the bicentenary of Wagner's birth this month.
The director of Rheinoper, Christoph Meyer, insisted that his company had not meant to offend, and that its purpose had been to "mourn, not mock" victims of the Holocaust.
But operagoers said the production had unrelentingly bombarded the audience with shocking Holocaust imagery from the start.
The opening scene depicted singers inside glass containers dropping to the floor as they were enveloped in a white fog – a clear allusion to the gas chambers that killed millions in Nazi death camps. Another scene that caused some in the audience to gasp and cover their faces showed an entire family having their heads shaved before being shot dead by the SS.
Michael Szentei-Heise, the head of Düsseldorf's Jewish community, reported that members of the audience had "booed and banged doors" as they left the performance before the end.
James Kennaway, an Oxford University historian, said that while it was certainly unusual in modern times, Wagner operas had in the past been held responsible for causing operagoers to seek medical help. "This is not the first time that doctors have been called in," he told the Guardian. "[Wagner's] operas have often produced extreme reactions and the list of singers, conductors and patrons who have keeled over dead after attending one and suffered a 'Wagnerian delirium' is amazing."
The Düsseldorf production had taken a "rather crude approach" to Wagner, often said to be Hitler's favourite composer, and his notorious antisemitic rages.
"This production rather hit the audience over the head with its message. It recalls the scenes in Ken Russell's film Lisztomania, in which Wagner emerges from a Nazi grave at a Nuremberg-style rally and shoots everyone with a machine-gun-cum-electric guitar. While Wagner has questions to answer in relation to the Third Reich, a degree of subtlety would help," Kennaway said.
In a statement, the managers of Rheinoper said they had been aware that the production would be controversial but admitted they had underestimated the huge psychological and physical impact it would have on some of the audience. "It's with great regret that we now respond to the fact that some scenes, in particular the very realistically portrayed shooting scene, caused such strong psychological and physical reactions in some visitors that some of them had to be taken into medical care," it said.
Kominski, 51, said he had interlaced the opera with "Nazi motifs" as a way of analysing the themes of guilt and atonement to explore the question as to "how one deals with the question of perpetrators and victims, and constitute a new order out of a world of terror". From now on the production will only be performed by Rheinoper as a concert.
Szentei-Heise told German media that the production had strayed so far from Wagner's original intentions that it was implausible. "This opera has nothing to do with the Holocaust. But I think that the audience has made this very clear to the opera house and the director."
Thanas, is Dusseldorf full of closet Nazis or something?!
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
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