Daniel Barenboim has gained distinction in Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival and such opera houses as La Scala, Milan and Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he has been Music Director since 1992. He recorded this Tannhäuser in Berlin with a superbly balanced cast: Peter Seiffert shines in the title role, while Jane Eaglen’s heroically scaled Elisabeth is set against Waltraud Meier’s dangerously sensuous Venus. Thomas Hampson makes a thoughtful, lyrical Wolfram and René Pape a noble Landgrave Hermann.