His "Tannhäuser" in 1955 was the first production of the opera since the war with rather unfortunate sets by Ralph Koltai. One critic described the landscape as in which Tannhäuser finds himself on leaving the Venusberg as resembling one of the dreadier stretches of the A3. There were certainly a great many frail, blackened trees on a brownish heath, such as we often see in my own parts of Surrey after a summer fire on the common. No consideration seemed to have been given to the vocal problems of the singers - the Hall of Song in Act II was so vast and open that it was utterly lacking in resonance and Silvia Fisher as Elisabeth had difficulty in projecting her voice over the orchestra, all the sound seemed to go up into the flies. Kempe was very upset by all this and I can see him walking up and down in the stalls, his head in his hands, asking the world at large if something could not be done. Nothing was. << less