Eleanor is Assistant Director for the Wiener Staatsoper’s new production of Tannhäuser, directed by Lydia Steier.

It is about nothing less than love. This is what the Wartburg Sängergemeinschaft asks for, and this is what Tannhäuser seeks: he finds almost endless lust with the goddess of love Venus, and hopes to attain bliss with the “pure” Elisabeth. In his vacillation between satisfaction and renunciation, between guilt and protest, in his being torn between fulfillment and exaltation, he corresponds entirely to the grammar of the Romantic age - and still speaks directly to us today.