Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg

The singer Tannhäuser has turned his back on the world and, intoxicated by erotic sensual pleasures, lives in the realm of the goddess Venus. Soon weary of this excessive life, Tannhäuser is drawn back to humankind, above all to his former lover Elisabeth. At the court of Landgrave Hermann he takes part in a singing contest meant to answer the question of which form of love is the true one: the ascetic or the hedonistic.