New-Yorker Stadt-Theater Opera: Tannhäuser: Neuendorff Benefit

“A performance of ‘Tannhäuser,’ if it is a boon at all, is one that comes very seldom, and the representation, therefore, last night at the Stadt Theater was a matter of far more than ordinary interest. We have no love for Wagner; he is a man of genius who has missed the true aim of his art, and wasted his magnificent powers in efforts after what is impossible of achievement, or else what is not worth achieving. No musician, however, can be insensible of the grand ideas which struggle through the obscurities of this wonderful opera, and the splendors which light up its dismal mists at rare moments with the glory of genuine inspiration. The overture, with its somber chorus of departing pilgrims, its weird music of the Venus Mount, and the final return of the penitential procession, in which the solemn chant is repeated with such a beautiful variation indicative of disburdened hearts, is itself a superb study; the contest of the Minnesingers abounds in the materials for an admirable dramatic and musical situation, though it is robbed of its due effect by the fact that none of the singers, except Wolfram, has what may be called a song, and even his is a song without melody. All the music is strongly individualized, all of it is truly dramatic, and, finally, the opera is distinguished by unity of idea and strict adherence to a fixed purpose. Its one overwhelming, unpardonable fault is the absence of melody, without which there is no real music. There are not more than four numbers in the whole work which contain even the germs of what is popularly called an air. The Tannhäuser is tolerably popular, however, with our German fellow citizens, and last night they attended the representation in great numbers, the occasion being doubly interesting to the patrons of the Stadt Theater because it was also the benefit of Mr. Neuendorf, the conductor. The orchestra was in unusually good trim, and, upon the whole, did as much justice to the splendid score as could reasonably be expected. Mr. Bernard who played the part of Tannhauser had the heaviest of the singing. He possesses a very pleasant tenor voice, which, in the quieter parts, he uses well; but he has unfortunately a taste for the more robust roles, and decided dramatic qualifications for them also, while in such parts his voice is apt to fail him at critical moments. His success, therefore, must be debited with some drawbacks. The song in the first act, repeated afterward in which he gives loose to the riotous passion that had fired his heart of the Venusberg, showed how much better was his intellectual appreciation of the part than his physical powers, but in the long and trying last scene of the opera he was excellent. Frau Lichtmay sang the thankless music of Elizabeth with both power and refinement, and aroused, as usual, a small tempest of enthusiasm. Mr. Vierling was fortunate as Wolfram in having musically the most interesting music in the opera. He was good all through—best of all in his test aria at the contest of minstrels, an exhausting piece which was very well phrased; Habelmann, William Formes, and Franosch were satisfactory in the minor male characters. Frl. Krause gave the difficult Shepherd’s Song efficiently, and Frl. Römer, in the part of Venus in the first act, looked pretty and sang tolerably. The reappearance of the goddess and the other supernatural machinery at the end of the opera were omitted. The dresses and scenery were fair, but the chorus was absurdly small. It was so bad, however, that we ought to be thankful there was no more of it.”