joep van lieshout: tannhauser stage design for bayreuther festspiele

‘tannhäuser’ stage design by joep van lieshout for bayreuther festspiele images © bayreuther festspiele / enrico nawrath

dutch designer joep van lieshout has designed the set of richard wagner’s opera, ‘tannhäuser’, which is being staged at the bayreuther festival in germany this month. founded by wagner in 1876, the festspiele house features performances of his own works exclusively, and is only used during the annual summer celebration. this set design was initiated in 2007, and will be used for this production for the next five consecutive years.

the designer explains: ‘normally there are three acts and four different sets. together we decided to make one set and a venus mountain that rises up from the floor. the set itself doesn’t look historical but is a large factory in which a new version of my technocrat installation is starring. we wanted to make one very dense continuous performance of two and half hour instead of the traditional one (five hours: three acts of one hour and two pauses of one hour). though we had to keep the pauses, the slaves of the ‘technocrat’ will continue acting during the pauses.’

‘the technocrat is an obsessive installation in which the human acts as operator and producer of excrements which are carefully processed in biogas. the biogas is then used for the production of food (no food-no excrements) and alcohol (we want happy people and no revolution). this installation parallels the traditional setting of tannhäuser: the marvelous singers hall in the wartburg castle. the wartburg is also a place of power, society, systems and conventions, ethics and morality and stands quite opposite the venus mountain where the individual hedonistic freedom rules. the battle of tannhäuser is about choosing between the apollonian and the dionysian. at the end tannhäuser is not able to find either of them.’ -joep van lieshout

director: sebastian baumgarten dramaturge: karl hegemann musical director: thomas hengelbrock video art: chris kondek costumes: nina von mechov