By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN [NY Times, 30 July 2008]

BADEN-BADEN, Germany — Waltraud Meier topped a remarkable cast in Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” here the other night, although the current talk of the opera season in Europe is the promiscuous new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal,” not too far away, that opened the Bayreuth Festival on Friday: it comes a jackboot shy of “Springtime for Hitler,” but its ambitions soar, and so do many of the voices.