Wagner Tannhäuser WWV 70

piano vocal score Text by the composer; english translation by E. NewmanPlace and time: Inside the Venusberg near Eisenach, the valley of the Wartburg, Wartburg Castle, at the beginning of the 13th centuryCharacters: Hermann (bass) - Tannhäuser (tenor) - Wolfram von Eschenbach (baritone) - Walther von der Vogelweide (tenor) - Biterolf (bass) - Heinrich der Schreiber (tenor) - Reinmar von Zweter (bass) - Elisabeth (soprano) - Venus (soprano) - a young shephard (soprano) - four young noble men (2 sopranos, 2 altos)Wagner was never entirely satisfied with his "Tannhäuser", which is why he kept revising it, the last time for a Vienna production in 1875, when he staged the work for the third time. In the overture, the abrupt transition to the Bacchanal - he had composed this especially for Paris - now occurs directly after the Venusberg motifs. Wagner was no longer able to eliminate the musical inconsistencies between the Dresden version and the newly written scene involving Venus and Tannh