jan 30, 2015 - 49. Tannhäuser the villain! He has been in the Venusberg!
Description:
Der Venusberg' (Mountain or Hill of Venus) was the original title of Richard Wagner's short libretto written in 1842, starting with act 1 'Im Venusberg' (1). However, Wagner changed the title into 'Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg' for the first performance of the opera in Dresden on 19 October 1845, because members of the Medical Academy had spread lascivious jokes about 'Venusberg' = mons veneris (2, p.188).Indeed, "...the libretto is full of puns about being 'in' or 'penetrating' the hill of Venus..." (3). But to Nietzsche the only German true poet who entered the 'Venusberg' was Goethe when he composed the Venetian epigrams (4, p.16).
There was a Wagner-hype in the second half of the 19th century: "... it was in Tannhäuser, more than any of Wagner's other operas, that many in the late 19th century found a reflection of their moral and sexual concerns. Its admirers included Queen Victoria, Baudelaire and Freud..." (3). Again, Nietzsche had a sardonic verdict: "The Tannhauser overture is a bourgeois fishy to me (...) Wagner had the virtue of décadents,—pity.…." (4, p.26, partly my translation).
Wagner's greatest admirer was presumably the notorious King Ludwig II of Bavaria who had his study room in his fairy-tale castle at Neuschwanstein decorated in 1881 with paintings depicting scenes of the opera.
Read more here:
http://kbender.blogspot.com/2015/01/tannhauser-villain-he-has-been-in.html?view=magazine
Added to timeline:
Date:
jan 30, 2015
Now
~ 9 years and 3 months ago
