Vintage Audi - Parsifal, Pape, Kaufmann, Stemme

From the Bayerisches Staatsoper Munich, Wagner Parsifal with a dream cast - René Pape, Jonas Kaufmann and Nina Stemme, Christian Gerhaher and Wolfgang Koch, conducted by Kirill Petrenko, directed by Pierre Audi.  The production is vintage Audi - stylized, austere, but solidly thought-through. Audi, veteran of decades on the cutting edge of music theatre, knows what he's doing, even if what he does isn't flashy. So darkness and desolation greeted us on the stage. The Grail community is in trouble, desiccated like the skeleton in the corner beneath which Kundry shelters, a wild, lonely outcast.  Audi's focus on the main characters focuses attention on what they are singing about. Just as in Greek tragedy, there's little need for fancy decoration. In an opera like Parsifal austere is no bad thing, and abstraction will suffice.  This also means more room for the music itself which is hardly a minor distraction. In many ways it is the whole point of the drama, greater than the stars or scenery.  Without the music there'd be no opera !

René Pape is cloaked in black, Amfortas (Christian Gehaher) in white, with Kundry (Nina Stemme) in black/red moiré.  Lest we get caught up, too soon in simplicity, Pape and Stemme remove their "armour". (Lucky for them in this blistering heat)  So when the "Innocent Fool" Parsifal arrives (Jonas Kaufmann),  he's wearing a bizarre breastplate. Minor detail but don't dismiss it yet.  The Grail Knights are in heavy armour. But for what purpose ?  In their fortress they have no enemies to fight but themselves.  The orchestra wells up, magnificently, Parsifal bells booming. Of course Parsifal is impressed. But the children's choir sing of sacrifice. What is this blood ritual that's re-enacted without question ? Amfortas is suffering but the knights look on, but then remove their cloaks to reveal body suits.  Of course they're not "beautiful". It's easy to judge a  production by shocking images but whatb really matters is to figure out why.  Under their armour, they are human, capable of compassion. Though ugly, they are redeemable. Compassion is a greater gift than conventional beauty. As Parsifal wanders off, deep in thought, we should be thinking, too.

The reealm of Klingsor (Wolfgang Koch) is depicted through images of dead bodies, hanging upside down. Again, simple but effective.  The Flower Maidens are seen in fatsuits  Like the dead men, they are Klingsor's victims, creatures of his sick mind, created to trap and deceive. If we judge them on surface appearances we are buying into his game, treating women as objects to be consumed by men.  Besides, listen to their voices - seriously good casting here - Tara Erraught among them.  There is a lot of misogyny in Parsifal, such as the Knight's mistreatnent of Kundry, which needs to be addressed because abuse is the opposite of compassion.   Part of the reason the Grail community is in trouble  is its dismissal of women and the principles they represent.  Kundry, after all, "never lies" as Gurnemanz tells us right out, though the Knights malign her.  Though she's controlled by Klingsor, she's the vehicle through which Parsifal connects to his mother and awakens his conscience.  In this act, Stemme (as Kundry) looks lovely in evening gown and blonde wig, but her lines are forcefully delivered. She's too real to do mock-temptress.  And so the walls of Klingsor's kingdom are rent apart, his victory denied. Kundry reveals how she was cursed : I liked the personality in Stemme's performance.  And thus Parsifal's self-discovery, Kaufmann's voice swelling with magnificent resolution.

"Hier bist du an geweihtem Ort:da zieht man nicht mit Waffen her, geschloss'nen Helmes, Schild und Speer.". Mark those words from Gurnemanz. They explain a lot.  Parsifal creeps back to the Grail Community garbed in strange armour but disrobes, handing the spear - a neat, elegant cross, not a weapon. Instead of violence, bigotry and obsession with outward appearance, redemption comes through kindness.   The steel in Kaufmann's voice gleams, evoking the inner strength Parsifal has learned from years of wandering and searching.  Pape and Kaufmann can do no wrong in this performance, they pretty much steal the show.  As Parsifal baptises Kundry, the stage lights up : utter simplicity and purity, "Wie dünkt mich doch die Aue heut so schön!". The textures in the orchestra open out, with clarity and ineffable sweetness. Kaufamnn's timbre became infused with tenderness.  .

Meanwhile the Knights are back in their formal black armour intoning their ritual dirge. Like Amfortas, they're still acting out guilt, blood sacrifice and immutable agony.  Christian Gerhaher sings a good enough Amfortas though somewhat one-dimensional.   Amfortas carries baggage, he's ridden with conflicts and should ideally be characterized with more sympathy. This is a pity, since Audi's clean, unfussy staging puts so much emphasis on the part.

Mission accomplished, Kaufmann stands with the chorus, one among equals and prays - not with this hands together but over his eyes.  Durch Mitglied wissend mitglied, empathy, kindness, - don't judge people by surface appearances but by what they might be inside.  Instead, listen ! And above all, the imperative of rising above self for higher purposes.  An excellent ending : the focus shifting from the mortals on stage to an abstract depiction of light, more spiritual than specific.  This reflects Wagner's stage direction "Lichtstrahl: hellstes Erglühen des "Grales".   So we don't see a literal dove flying around, but the meaning is clear. The orchestra has the last word, so to speak : we are in the presence of the sublime.
 

Chamber Mahler Wagner Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony

Secession Orchestra dirigé par Clément Mao-Takacs à Royaumont (© DR)

A very unusual concert last month at Royaumont in the L'Île-de-France,"Jardins d'amour", for all three pieces deal with gardens, lushness and enchantment. - Mahler Blumine, Wagner Good Friday Music and Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony  with the Secession Orchestra, conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs with soloists Stéphane Degout and Elsa Dreisig, now on France Musique.  Royaumont, despite its royal connections, was a Cistercian monastery, not quite the place for full-scale Wagner, or Zemlinsky or Mahler, so this was an opportunity for close-up, detailed listening.

It was also a good way to hear Mahler's orphan Blumine (1884) written as incidental music for the play Der Trompeter von Sakkingen, now lost.  At first, he incorporated it into his Symphony no 1, but discarded it. It wasn't published together with the symphony, and was also thought lost  until Donald Mitchell discovered the manuscript in 1967.  Though it does get played, it doesn't really fit well with the symphony, so is generally heard as a stand-alone. It's a very early piece which has its charms but is also rather slight. As Prof. Henry-Louis de La Grange said, soon after the discovery,"It is the music of a late-nineteenth-century Mendelssohn, pretty, charming, lightweight, urbane, and repetitious, just what Mahler’s music never is." All the more reason for enjoying it as an entrée. The instrumentation is so spare that it's effectively a chamber piece anyway.  The horn call, which will become a Mahler signature, rises above a shimmering background of strings, til it's joined by oboe, clarinet and flutes in serenade. Eventually the textures thin out, with a long high note hanging in the air. Wagner's Good Friday Music from Parsifal fares less well in chamber reduction. Though it's suitably reverential it's not easy to capture the power of the original.  Nonetheless it connects well with the theme of regeneration central to Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, the highlight of this programme, in the 2012 arrangement by Thomas Heinisch.   .

Regeneration and renewal, the handing on of enlightenment, even after death. Although Zemlinsky's music is lush, Tagore's texts don't depict a love affair in the usual romantic sense.  The music is sensual, but the longing here is for higher goals than earthly lust. At the end, the Prince sings  Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. (I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose.). Zemlinsky compared this work to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde , wishful thinking on his part since there really aren't many points oif comparison apart from the exotic setting.. But what they do share is the idea that things go on, even when one generation gives way to the next. Please read my piece on what is still the finest recording of the work : Eschenbach, Goerne, Schafer. I've written lots on this symphony and composer. 

Thus the piece adapts well to chamber arrangement where the emphasis goes towards essential meaning, as opposed to lushness for its own sake, which throws some performances way off beam. No problem here, with cleaner textures, and the soloists, Elsa Dreisig and Stéphane Degout, whose clear, pure baritone captures the images of light in the text.   This new arrangement, published by Schott, should have a place in performing spaces where a full orchestra isn't feasible, because it's very true to the original.

Heinisch writes "To my surprise, it was relatively easy to arrange the first three movements for ensemble, as the orchestra never goes beyond the traditional four-part harmony, with a texture that – interestingly enough – is closer to Brahms than, for instance, to Schönberg. From an instrumentation perspective, the exquisite slow fourth movement “Sprich zu mir, Geliebter” (Speak to me, my love) in the middle of the work poses a challenge, given the subtle separation of the string parts. As the string parts are not played by several instrumentalists, it was necessary to assign some of them to the harmonium or accordion (either can be used in my version). I feel that this movement has lost none of its mysterious charm through this alteration. It was also necessary to make changes to the short yet massive fifth movement. By introducing the shrill E-flat clarinet, which does not feature at all in the original, Ihave attempted to do justice to the abrasiveness and corporeality of this movement."  


Definitely worth a listen ! 

Durch Mitleid wissend - Bayreuth Parsifal 2016

Wagner Parsifal at Bayreuth: always a place of pilgrimage. But would Wagner himself have prefered po-faced reverence or thought-provoking engagement?   Wagner didn't do "pretty pictures". Of all his oeuvre, Parsifal is the epitome of an ideas-opera, where abstract concepts are central to the action. It is a medieval mystery play, writ large.  But what abstract concepts?  Religiosity or true religion? Formula or genuine faith?  Parsifal has acquired a veneer of  religiosity because audiences assume that an opera with Good Friday music and semi-religious symbols must somehow be "Christian". Yet the theology of Parsifal is thoroughly unorthodox. The Grail concept pre-dates Christianity and lives on in legends with marginal connection to what we know of the Early Church. The Knights Templar did exist but were ruthlessly suppressed. And that's even before we get to Klingsor and Kundry.  Take Parsifal at face value, and miss its true challenge. 

Controversy! Parsifal with Muslims! Uwe Erik Laufenberg's new production for 2016 confronts received wisdom, so at first it shocks. But as with many new ideas, deeper consideration yields insight. The Knights Templar were a military order, created to drive Muslims out of the Holy Land.  So much for "Love thy neighbour as thyself".  Jesus wouldn't have been a part of this community. Connecting Parsifal to Islam is not nearly as scandalous as it might seem. In these times of hate, ignorance and intolerance, we need to rethink fundamentals and second-hand assumptions. Again and again, Wagner writes "Durch Mitglied wissend...."  ("Through Compassion, knowledge".) Images of water and purity, not bloodshed.  The Grail Community inhabit a desert, in every sense, bereft of replenishment.  Under this lovely marble dome, amidst rubble, they lie on stretchers, dying of thirst.  A light shines and a young boy appears, as does a realistic swan.  Kundry (Elena Pankratova) quietly cradles the living child, Gurnemanz (Georg Zeppenfeld) cradles the dead bird, raging at Parsifal (Klaus Florian Vogt).  A small detail, but one which speaks volumes.

Amfortas (Ryan McKinny), fortified, appears as Christ Crucified, with a crown of thorns, arms outstretched. Amfortas is the son of Titurel (Karl-Heinz Lehner) , a semi-supernatural figure, but mortal.  Titurel's disembodied voice booms from above the stage. But what do his words mean "Muss ich sterben, vom Retter ungeleitet?" If Parsifal the saviour, who is he who is his father?  Parsifal is fascinated by who his mother might have been, but isn't much bothered by his father.  Who is Klingsor, one wonders? Whether one believes that Jesus was God made man to save the world, that is the fundamental precept of Christianity.

It's not Muslims who could be discomforted by this approach to the opera, and understandably so, too. But Laufenberg's interpretation comes from the opera itself.  How does  Parsifal (first seen with a quiff) become entranced by the faith that the Grail Community believe in, even in their own flawed way?  I don't know how this is shown on stage, but in the film of the production, the long orchestral transit is illustrated by a depiction of the universe, with stars and planets: Extremely beautiful, very profound. Although the Parsifal bells are overwhelming, they fit wonderfully with this cosmic panorama.  The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra was conducted by Hartmut Haenchen. Amfortas enters a glowing, light-filled bath.  The Knights, dressed as monks,  partake of the chalice (a Grail), in which wine has been transubstatiated into the blood of Christ.  Yet there's something very spiritual about this scne, lit in silvers and pastels. The monks embrace in fellowship. Parsifal, sitting among them, absorbs the mystery. No wonder he spends the rest of his life trying to come back.


In Act Two, the "church" is transformed into an Islamic palace, the walls decorated with blue and white tiles, a pool in the background, a symbol of the Islamic concept of Paradise as a place with cooling water.  A figure dressed in white, his mouth gagged, sits while Klingsor (Gerd Grochowski) rages.  It's Amfortas, forced  into watching his past re-enacted. Klingsor, like so many demagogues, is obsessed by what he claims to hate. Against a background of crucifixes, he holds a crucifix and rants. Psychologically telling - Klingsor wanted to be like God, but is a loser.  His realm is delusion. The Flower Maidens are seductive, but they're not real.  Burkas (symbols of oppression) transform to semi nudity.  Just as the Grail Knights hate women, so does Klingsor, which makes Kundry's role in this opera so critical. Parsifal enters, as a commando: another provocative image these days when we see armed intruders of all types on the news.  As Kundry attempts to seduce Parsifal, Amfortas and Klingsor watch from the shadows. Realizing how Amfortas received his wound shakes Parsifal to his senses.

The overture to Act Three is illustrated by a film of a pool, with palm fronds in a misty haze, a subtle but deliberate reference to Palm Sunday and what happens thereafter.  Is Kundry in hijab, or is her headcloth the kind many women the world over wear? Is Gurnemanz in monastic robes, or does his waistcoat resemble that of a man in the Middle East?  A gunman in black breaks in, but Gurnemanz welcomes him as a guest, for it is a Holy Day. The gunman plants a cross into the ground. It's the long-sought spear that caused Amfortas's wound.  Wonderful acting from Georg Zeppenfeld, who portrays Gurnemanz as a mellowed old man who cries at the thought of Titurel's death.  I was rather less convinced when the set opened out to a vista of forests and waterfalls, with dancing nymphs - the Flower Maidens made pure? - but in a production with many other good ideas  a misfire like this is forgivable.  In any case, Wagner;'s stage directions refer to to a Quelle, grasses and Blume auf den Auen.  Mitglied !

This tender, almost domestic interlude serves to highlight the power of the Mittag music. Through rising clouds we spot the visage of Richard Wagner with a wry smile, and then see a marvellously clear shot of a church bell, while the Parsifal bells ring out.  Then we're back with the monks. Amfortas opens Titurel's coffin, but all that's left is dust. "Mein Vater". "Ein Mensch, wie alle" as Gurnemanz had earlier described him. Parsifal brings forth the spear, diguised as a cross.  Vogt's voice rings forcefully, but clear and luminous,  haloed by the orchestra.   Vogt is wonderful, the Parsifal of our times. "Oh! Welchen Wunders höchstes Glück!", his voice rings up as he holds the spear, which he then places in the coffin.  Amfortas removes his cricifix and throws it into the coffin. You can see why many would be discomforted by this, even they could cope otherwise. The monks and other men join in - possibly Muslims, wearing tunics and caps - placing precious objects beside the spear. Literally "burying the hatchet". This, not baptism. or any specific Christian rite, is the Höchsten Heiles Wunder! Erlösung dem Erlöser! 

This new Bayreuth Parsifal might take some time to get used to, but it's well worth the effort since it's true to the libretto and to the deeper meaning of the opera.  It's not Christian. Mitglied is universal.  It also marks a new departure for Bayreuth, burying at least some of the bigotry of the past. 

Wagner without ideas ? Parsifal, Vienna 2016

Wagner without ideas? Whatever Parsifal may or may not mean, ideas are its lifeblood, the flowing source of inspiration and thus of life. Christian Mielitz's staging of Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera is so bereft of ideas that it might as well have dispensed with the return of Parsifal in the Third Act. Maybe some minds like ideas-free opera. but why desecrate Wagner's most challenging opera?

There is a section of the opera world that resents the very word "regie" because they can't see past the English language connotations of the word. But all "Regie" means is that other people have tried to engage with what an opera might mean. There is no such thing as non-interpretation. No thinking person can read a score without considering how music, text and ideas connect. Basically, the anti-interpretation crowd don't want any ideas except their own. In other words, a kind of nihilism, though that's perhaps too big a word for that crowd. They should love this Parsifal, though, because it's an ideas-free vacuum, so sterile and diffident that no-one should be forced to think.

To be fair, though, there are stabs at ideas that don't go far enough to penetrate. Act One takes place in a fencing school, which is a fertile premise, since fencers use foils which vaguely resemble knightly swords, and wear protective padding like knights wear armour. They become anonymous behind their visors. But  that's as far as the concept goes. Fencers stand around posing a lot, then suddenly thrust and cut.  It's an art which depends on quick wits.. My father was crippled, but a champion fencer.. Unfortunately, this production doesn't get past the idea of costumes, flitting away from ideas without any concept of strategy.  Act Two is bathed in red light, the set decorated with overstuffed sofas, there for display, not for use, which says a lot more about the production than about Klingsor's infernal realm.  Act Three is pretty much black and white, in a drama where everything is as unblack and unwhite as possible.   From time to time there are smatterings of promise, such as Gurnemanz depicted with one arm exposed and wounded, like Wotan with his eye patch, but the ideas dry up, desiccated by their own inertia.

This production has been around for ever, though it was probably dead in the water from the start. Maybe it;s regularly revived because it's a money-spinner, designed for audiences who like non-challenge and non-intellect. But why Wagner?  Sorry RW, we don't want you and your conceptual thinking.   The 2016 revival doesn't have a whole lot going for it. Instead of Thielemann, we got Adam Fischer, who is OK, but won't stir waves.  The principals are good - Michael Volle, Falk Struckmann, Stephen Gould and Violetta Urmana - but more reliable than overwhelming, which is perfectly acceptable. I did enjoy Urmana's voluptuous Kundry, this time portrayed as a lady who enjoys the physical side of life without worrying too much about the metaphysical.  I also liked the choruses, with an unusual proportion of very high voices.  Maybe there's a very subtle message embedded here, which connects to the role of women in a misogynist environment, but I don't think Vienna runs that deep.  At the beginning of the 2014-2015 season  Franz Welser-Möst quit suddenly as Music Director after holding the post longer than most. A few days later, Bertrand de Billy quit, too.  Read more here. No-one was saying why but who knows ?  Maybe they care about art with ideas.

François-Xavier Roth LSO Wagner Berg Mahler 5 Barbican

François-Xavier Roth conducted the London Symphony Orchestra  in Wagner, Berg and Mahler at the Barbican, London,. All music is "modern": Monteverdi was new in his time, and Bach, and Wagner. Anyone who genuinely knows Roth's innovative work will know better than to expect  cliché.   This time Roth challenges assumptions in a short series the LSO calls "Beyond Romanticism: New Languages". Thus, this concert was a chance to hear Wagner, Berg and Mahler from new perspectives.

Wagner Parsifal in a concert hall, for example, and the Overture thereof, rather than a concert performance of the full opera. This was an opportunity to hear Wagner as symphonist, examining his music close-up, revealing its innate beauty.  The music seemed illuminated, as if glowing from within, the textures so transparent and so subtle that I thought of Debussy, whose credentials as a master of the modern are as great as that of the Second Viennese School.   Roth's approach suggests the "New Language" Wagner was creating in Parsifal, which also reflects the new beginnings Parsifal will bring to revive the Grail community.   Over the years, Parsifal has attracted pseudo-religious baggage. Please see my article Religion versus Religiosity.  Do we really want to end up like the monks whose fetish for ritual blinds them to the enlightenment that is Parsifal's mission   Roth's luminous textures might not please traditionalists, but his reading was perceptive , and absolutely true to the spirit of the opera.

Roth built his career on the firm foundations of the French baroque tradition. We forget that, in their time, Lully  was "new" and Rameau perceived as a dangerous radical. The connections between the baroque and the modern are very strong indeed, as are the implications for performance practice. Hence the inner discipline of Roth's style, reflecting an aesthetic that stems from Voltaire and Descartes.  It's not for nothing that Roth is the most intuitive interpreter of Pierre Boulez.  This intelligence informed this performance of Alban Berg's Seven Early Songs.  Camilla Tilling, the soloist, was one of Benjamin Zander's discoveries. She gave a good enough performance here, if a bit too  subdued. This wasn't a problem because the songs are so well known, we can live with hearing them as orchestral pieces for a change. Even though  there were infelicities in the playing at times, the LSO gave a thoughtful account, throwing emphasis on the orchestration.

Although Mahler Symphony no 5 is ubiquitous, that doesn't necessarily mean that we really know it. The better a piece is, the more open it is to fresh thinking.  Roth and the LSO began with an explosive, exuberant start, emphasizing the boldness of Mahler's concept. The trumpets sounded exuberantly, as if they were marching into battle. But that's part of the inner meaning of the symphony. It's scored for huge forces to lull the literal minded into thinking it's all excitement .  The real excitement, though, lies in its contradictions.

This symphony is not all blast and fanfare. Indeed, Mahler premiered it in Vienna’s Kleinen Musikvereinsaal, to emphasize its “Kammermusikton”. Thus Roth observed the changes of dynamic, from loud and forceful, to quiet but equally potent. It's chamber music, on a big scale, but chamber music in the importance of detail.  Mahler embeds within this symphony different units which function like miniature chamber ensembles. There are interlocking dialogues, between trumpet and horn, between horn and flute, solo violin and strings. The trumpet part is important, but it weaves in and out throughout, leading and tantalizing,  The timpani provide much of the low, rumbling undercurrent that flows throughout the symphony, but isn’t always appreciated, especially as they are played extremely quietly, easily lost in the mass of noisy performance.  The "storm" theme was well articulated, the low brass and winds working  together to  create the image of distant thunder, or a murmur of something undefined and imperceptible.

It's significant that Mahler nearly died in 1901, while this symphony was in gestation. Indeed, the symphony was first performed with the Rückert setting, Um Mitternacht. In the silence of the night the poet hears his heart and realizes its beat separates life from death. Rückert places his faith in God, but for Mahler, more deist than true believer, it’s more complex. The Trauermarsch in this symphony is counterbalanced by the passionate Adagietto and Finale, music of positive energy.   There was some rough abandon in the playing, but all to the good, I thought, since it underlined the contrasts.  Roth's conducting style is energetic - he has conducted Lully with a staff - and this gives his performances an earthy punchiness that's quite distinctive.  Not that he moves a lot - he conducts with both hands, as Boulez did. Anyone can read Roth's CV off Google, but he's a very individual conductor who has to be experienced live for full effect.

Andreas Schager - shining new Parsifal, Berlin, Barenboim

Andreas Schager made his role debut as Parsifal with Daniel Barenboim in a new production for the Berlin Staatsoper. From all accounts, Schager's the bright new hope in the Wagner tenor world. He sang an outstanding Siegfried in Barenboim's BBC Proms Götterdämmerung,  

At the time, I wrote"The sensation of the evening was Andreas Schager. True Heldentenors are rare and a singer like this is rarer still. Schager's voice is full of natural colour and beauty, which he uses well, creating myriad nuances and shadings. His phrasing is intelligent, bringing out character and meaning.  In Wagner, it's not enough, ever, to sing words without meaning. Each time Schager sang, I felt that I was learning more about Siegfried than I'd fathomed before. Every  passage was individual, purposefully and beautifully expressed. Schager's voice is flexible, so he can do subtle changes of inflection without sacrificing line. He also has stamina. Though the part isn't a killer like that in Siegfried, it shouldn't pose problems. Schager has strong lungs but also strong technique. 

He can also act. He inhabits the part so intuitively that his body becomes an extension of his singing. His movements are instinctive and expressive.  Schager could not have had much coaching for the part since he only stepped into the Berlin production at short notice, and from what I've read, it was one devoid of Personenregie. When Schager moves, we remember that Siegfried grew up with animals in the forest, a true child of nature. Even when he dons a suit, Schager's agility suggests that the real Siegfried still lives within. The sheer joy and energy in Schager's singing makes us realize that, for Siegfried, everything is new and exciting."

Although Siegfried in Götterdämmerung, isn't quite as much of a tour de force as in Siegfried,  Parsifal in Parsifal is definitely a leap to the top, an anointment of sorts, promising a good future. 
Austrian born, Berlin resident Andreas Schager has quietly been building up a career in the smaller but more esoteric German houses, gaining the sort of experience that comes with hard work and total immersion in repertoire. He sings a lot of Wagner and did the title role in Rienzi twice, including this January in Hamburg. He's not a Met-style publicity creation and puts the hype about the Met Siegfried into perspective.  I was wracking my brain trying to remember where I'd heard Schager before and remembered the superb Mozart Magic Flute from Berlin in April 2013, where  Schager sings the first Armoured Man. It's not a huge part, but he's singing it with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Found the Grail! Parsifal Royal Opera House HD

What a difference HD makes! My initial misgivings about the new Wagner Pasifal at the Royal Opera House were transformed by the HD broadcast When its initial teething difficulties settle in, this production could be a keeper. The Royal Opera House needs a flagship new Wagner and this could be it. It's different, but it isn't nearly as wrong as some think.

Where's the Grail?  The answer, I think, lies in understanding the overall trajectory of Wagner's thought and music. In Das Ring des Niebelungen, those who pursue material treasures are destroyed.  Only when Valhalla goes up in flames and the foolish Rhinemaidens return the gold to Nature is the balance of the cosmos restored.  The Knights of Monsalvat turn the Grail into a fetish, imbuing it and the religious symbols around it with magical powers which have more to do with superstition than spirituality.  They haven't merely lost sight of the Grail, but of the whole purpose of religion. "He stood guard by God" they cry, when Titurel lies dead. But God doesn't need guards. He's God.Titurel  wants to defy nature and live forever. Ironically, once he's dead he'll be with his Redeemer, face to face. The Knights have ossified into a cult that denies women, sex and nature itself.

Would Jesus and his follwers, fleeing from the Romans, have used an ostentatios golden goblet at the Last Supper? In any case it's a hollow pot. So when a young boy emerges from the giant glass tube, haloed in white light, what's the problem?  "en heilig' Traumgesicht nun deutlich zu ihm spricht durch hell erschauter Wortezeichen Male; Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor; harre sein', den ich erkor." Only when the knights learn compassion, through the example of a Pure Fool, will they find their way again. The real Grail isn't an empty vessel but the promise of a Redeemer.

The Knights crowd round the boy and touch his wound. For 2,000 years we've become so inured to the blood ritual aspects of Christianity that we forget how shocking it is to have a religion based on lurid aspects of bloodletting and the weekly consumption of body parts.  The central image of Christianity is a man hanging from a Cross, blood pouring from his side. In some Catholic countries there are cults around realistic wax images of the dead Jesus. There are complex theological arguments justifying these things, but they're not really compatible with non-violence and compassion. So if audiences at Parsifal gasp at the sight of men fetishiziing blood, so well they should. All the more reason, not to obsess with a physical Grail but to focius on the metaphysics.Parsifal and Kundry atre a lot closer to what Jesus taught than the Knights ever were.

Although I sat in the most expensive seats for the live performance, I got a lot more out of the HD broadcast because the camera picked up close up detail. In any case, the first time you see a production, you can't take in everything.  This time round I was also struck by the delicacy of the colours. Only grey people see blank grey. Here we had tones of silver, dove grey, steel and marble, all truer to the ascetic macho culture of the Knights, who don't like women or dirty things til they are forced to "learn from the animals". Even the ritualistic hand gestures made sense. 

The singing this time was still uneven, and at times a strain to listen to, as if some singers were aiming at targets rather than singing lines.  René Pape's voice, as before, stood out, and closeups cut out background detail. Again I was surprised how well Gerald Finley sang Amfortas, more as a frail human being than as a King. I even warmed towards Simon O'Neill. I'd still prefer listening to Botha or Kaufmann, but O'Neill can act and convey the anti-hero aspects of the role. He'd make an interesting bad boy Tannhäuser. Much more could be made of Kundry, too. Sexuality plays an important role in this opera (the Knight's chastity, Klingsor's castration and the attempted seduction of Parsifal) so I don't at all have an issue with the idea of Kundry asnd Amfortas doing what they did in the background. That's how Amfortas got his wound and what Parisfal managed to resist). Susan Chitty's designs are excellent from a stagecraft perspective, but the direction needs tightening up, and more thought given to the relationships between characters, their body language and questions of visibility on stage. There are quibbles like these in all productions, which is why they often premiere in out of the way places with second-string casts. Langridge's Parsifal will stand the test of time and improve as time passes and the shock value wears off.  It's infinitely better than the last ROH Parsifal which was "traditional" but comatose, and visually much more sophisticated than the Met Parsifal.

As for Antonio Pappano's conducting? I liked it even more second time round. Purists will howl, but there is something validly Italianate in the music in the Second Act, so alien as it is to uptight Teutonic values. Pappano also gets the sense of processional - when Amfortas comes on centre stage in the Third Act, the music wells up like a grand Verdian entrance, but we see Gerald Finley's Amfortas hobbling on a frame. Unlike Titurel, who dies because he can't see the Grail, Amfortas has figured out that fetishes are sham. So Amfortas is frail and needs help to walk, but he's a hero in his own way.

There are those who will object to this Parsifal on the grounds that it's not "tradition". But look what slavish attention to tradition did to the Knights of Monsalvat. Wagner's heroes alwaya "macht neu", sweeping away form for the sake of form to create new art and new ideas.

Please see my other posts on different Parsifals,  my review of the live performance at the Royal Opera House, and my article Religion versus Religiosity in Parsifal... .
 photos copyright Clive Barda, courtesy Royal Opera House

Wagner Parsifal, Royal Opera House

Any new production of Wagner's Parsifal would be welcome, if only to banish memories of Klaus Michael Gruber's staging from the 1990's where the Knights of the Grail were so comatose they had to be wheeled across the stage on a conveyor belt. But the Knights wore Knight suits and it was a "traditional" production so no-one dared demur.  I'm glad that I went to this new Parsifal at the Royal Opera House, even though my initial misgivings weren't far off the mark. Aft6er watching the HD, I['ve cjhanged my minsd ona lot of things ! read my latest here.

Antonio Pappano saved the day. Parsifal seems to have unleashed something in him. He's not an idiomatic Wagner conductor, but he knows what turns abstract music into drama. The notes, of course, are the same, but he intensifies colours so they seem to shimmer, taking on invisble extra richness. The music seems to exist as a living organism, the Grail Made Real. Bernard Haitink's final performance of the Gruber Parsifal stretched tempi to the point of disintegration, Pappano's approach isn't faster so much as more visceral, and well, red-blooded. We don't see Amfortas fight Klingsor, but the music suggests titanic struggle, and a panorama of cosmic extremes. Pappano feels the emotional pull so instinctively that he imparts his enthusiasm to the orchestra, and to us. Wagner as Verdi, perhaps? The better the music, the more interpretations it generates.

Jonas Kaufmann's Parsifal (more here) was miraculous : no-one else comes close. Parsifal comes from nowhere and finds his identity by struggling with himself. In that sense, Simon O'Neill's Parsifal worked. There are three Parsifals in Parsifal, each at a different stage of spiritual development. As the young Parsifal, O'Neill's harsh metallic tone suggests steel being forged by fire. Parsifal embodies the spirit of the Spear. O'Neill's best moments come in his encounter with Kundry, when the hero finds himself, and the singer's strengths reveal themselves in moments of gleaming power. O'Neill's voice is so individual that it's  difficult to cast. His Siegmunds are good, but he's not a natural Parsifal version 3, where the character emerges into transcendant light, becoming a Jesus substitute. Becuase this new staging underplays the transformation, it sidelines the singer - any singer - reducing the pressure on him to shine.

When I last heard Parsifal , in August (see here), John Tomlinson sang Gurnemanz, or rather acted his way through the part, his experience informing the performance though the voice was tired. This time, René Pape sang the part, bringing out its urbane elegance.  Gurnemanz is one of Nature's aristocrats. Amfortas screws up: Gurnemanz survives to tell the tale.  Pape sang the long first act monologue with elegant poise - beautifully shaped phrasing that shaped the long text into music, rather than words alone. This time, the staging let him down. While it's true that Gurnemanz doesn't do direct action, here he was relegated to the sidelines, barely distinguishable  even in the orchestra stalls. I tracked him with my ears.

Angela Denoke's experience as Kundry stood her in good stead, for here the character seemed woefully under-directed. Denoke hits her notes like arrows aimed at targets. Perhaps this connects to Parsifal shooting the swan, but that's almost certainly far too esoteric for a production as simplistic as this. A different production, with more emphasis on the way the role works as drama, would show Denoke in better form.

Gerald Finley's voice has been through rough patches, but now seems to have settled well. His Amfortas was lucid: nice rich tones, a king rather than a man dying  slowly from wounds that cannot heal. Again a case of good singing, without direction.  When Robert Lloyd sang Titurel, it came as a shock. An extremely loud and sudden outburst, far too forceful for the role. Perhaps Titurel hates Amfortas for denying him the Grail, but it goes against the musical line. Willard White sang Klingsor, who has existed, like a dark angel from the beginning of Time. Audiences love famous names. White's Klingsor delivered enough to appeal, but sounded tired. Fresh. lively singing from the Flower Maidens , especially the one in the pink shift, who might be Celine Byrne. O'Neill looked very happy with them, and so he should, they were so vivacious that they almost stole the show.

This year, The Royal Opera House brought Stefan Herheim, at last, to London. His Verdi Les vêpres siciliennes (more here) was, like his other work, exceptionally erudite and well conceived, growing in stature with each new encounter. It would have been too much to expect another Parsifal from him while his Bayreuth Parsifal is still so fresh, but he's not the only good Wagner director around. Perhaps Stephen Langridge was chosen because he's so very different to Herheim. Previously, I've only seen his staging of Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur.(much more on that on this site)., so I had a completely open mind.

Langridge dispenses with the pseudo-religious claptrap that bedevils Parsifal and distorts its true meaning, whatever that might be. Titurel, Klingsor and Kundry are figments of the imagination. The Knights make a fetish of the grail, imbuing it with supernatural  powers. For them Good Friday has similar magical qualities. Yet Good Friday is the one day in the Christian calender when bread isn't turned into the body of Christ. Read my piece on Religion vs Religiosity in Parsifal – Wagner subverts Christian theology so thoroughly that Parsifal could be read as blasphemy.

Susan Chitty's set is dominated by a large box-like structure. It's an extremely effective device for bringing together different planes of action neatly on stage. It also serves as a metaphor for the Knights' Grail fetish. The box is empty! Instead a young boy emerges, semi-naked as if coming out of a sauna, not that we should be too specific about images. There's even steam. As a concept this is perfectly valid, because material objects like a physical Grail don't confer spirituality. A squeaky-clean boy is a perfectly good symbol of a pure, Holy Fool. In the Final Act the boy comes back older but by this stage he's served his purpose, just as Freia drops out of the Ring. The Gods of Valhalla won't die without their fix of golden apples, unless, like Titurel, they're so hung up on ritual that they can't live without it...Compassion isn't a material object.

That insight redeems Langridge's Parsifal.  Otherwise, the production is pretty static, and the characters underdeveloped. It will be very successful, though, for precisely that reason. Audiences seem to prefer one-dimensional productions where they don't have to engage with complicated ideas. They scream at the word "Regie" as if it were a fetish like the Grail. It does not carry the connotations of "regimentation"  that scares people who speak only English.  All the word means, and it's the same in French, is "directed", pure and simple So all the hysteria about "Regie" is a meaningless crock. There are good productions and bad, but that depends on what's in them  Those who really care about opera are, one hopes, mature enough to get something out of many different approaches. Productions which ignore depth of interpretation, like Warner's Eugene Onegin  or the painfully shallow ENO Wozzeck are the real "Regie" villains because they ignore the real depth and complexity in a good opera.

That said, though, Langridge's Parsifal is a good show. because it at least attempts to deal with the ideas. It's infinitely better than the Met Parsifal, stage-wise, with its overstated blood fetish.  Without the Met's classy cast, that production belonged in a minor provincial house, though it might have seemed radical to Met audiences. Langridge's Parsifal will, like the hero, grow and mature, especially if he fixes the characters. Give me real "Regie"like Herheim any time :

 photos copyright Clive Barda, courtesy Royal Opera House

Wagner Parsifal Prom 57 Tomlinson Elder

Prom 57, Wagner Parsifal (Mark Elder, the Hallé) brought us John Tomlinson, perhaps the greatest Wagnerian bass of our time.  Gurnemanz is one of his signature roles. He might bark, but he doesn't "park". Age skills are enhanced by age, not diminished.

When Titurel sounds in better vocal health than Gurnemanz, it's worrying. But Gurnemanz is probably even older than Titurel. John the Baptist knew nothing of Christianity but baptised Jesus himself. Like John the Baptist, John Tomlinson's Gurnemanz recognizes who Parsifal must be and anoints his mission.  Tomlinson now portrays Gurnemanz as an Ancient, a witness to primeval mysteries that long predated formal religion. An Erda in male form!

The part is also huge, bigger even than Parsifal's in many ways. Tomlinson still has stamina and stage presence, even if he makes us wince at his dry, constricted croaks, though they're arguably in character. Tomlinson's just back from singing The Green Knight in Birtwistle's Gawain in Salzburg. He's tired, but he's still giving us pointers in how to channel Gurnemanz.  Like Gerontius in the Bible, (not in Elgar) Tomlinson's Gurnemanz is redeemed because he has seen the future. This Proms Parsifal was something to cherish because Tomlinson made us "feel" Gurnemanz's soul, still idealistic, despite the ravages of time.

Katarina Dalayman's Kundry, in contrast, was uncommonly seductive. Waltraud Meier's wild animal Kundry remains a tour de force, defining the role at its most savage, but Dalayman's more womanly portrayal is perfectly valid, bringing out the more human, vulnerable side of the role. This is important, for in Parsifal, Wagner reprises themes that persist throughout his career: motherhood, or the lack thereof, the distortion of sexual and family relationships, inter-generational power struggles and basic body fluids. Kundry is an outsider because she's a sexual being in a repressed society. Dalayman blends the natural warmth of her voice with forceful delivery, so her crescendi rang out , reaching into the furthest recesses of the Royal Albert Hall. At times, she almost sounds like a Verdi heroine. But it's a perfectly valid interpretation, which would benefit from a sympathetic staging which deals with the psycho-sexual emotional thickets that underpin the portentious pseudo-religiosity which has dominated Parsifal interpretation. Read my "Religion versus Religiousity" here.
 
In Parsifal, there are three different Parsifals, just as there are three different Wotans in the Ring. We can't gauge the whole Wotan from either manifestation. It's a mistake to expect Parsifal to be glowing and luminous from the start . Like most Wagner heroes, he goes through a process of change. Lars Cleveman achieved this transition well. In the first Act,  Parsifal's a young Siegfried, imnstinctive and almost animal. He kills the swan because he knows no better. Lars Cleveman's sturdy physicality suits this Parsifal . He's cocky, confident and even sexy in a quirky way: a good foil for Dalayman's mother/seducer Kundry. The second act brought forth the best singing of the evening, even from Tomlinson.  Yet Wagner springs a surprise in the end. Once Parsifal is mature and takes on his mission, he doesn't actually sing all that much. The mystical splendour of transfiguration comes from the orchestra. The Divine Presence is in the music. Parsifal kneels and listens, in awe.

And so to Mark Elder and the Hallé. We don't hear them enough in London, and they're very distinctive. The music in the first act is notoriously hard to pull off. Haitink, for example, stretched the tempi so one could feel the comatose Grail community, so desiccated that it's become fossilized. But inertia and dramatic thrust don't sit naturally together. Elder's approach allowed details to be heard, such as the sour wail of the brass. One of the percussionists leaned onto her timpani to dampen the sound. With a huge orchestra and several choirs, this act must be a beast to conduct. Elder held the orchestra back, giving prominence to Tomlinson's long monologue. But the overall effect was more symphonic than operatic. Fortunately, once the drama got going, the playing gained pace.  Klingsor's magic castle was nicely conjured up. Theologically. Klingsor is off the wall. His battle with Amfortas is kinky, when you really think of it. But the scene sets the tone for the Parsifal/Kundry dialogue, so central to the deeper meaning of the opera.



The Hallé showed their real strengths in the Third Act, where music even dominates the singing. The orchestra evoked the complex images in the narrative. Parsifal's on a mysterious journey, whose nature we don't really know. The angularity in the music cuts against the dream-like chromaticism, suggesting pain and suffering. The Knights are dying. The Hallé express the savagery without the need for words. They were splendid in the Good Friday music, augmented by metallic "Parsifal bells" resonating into space. Despite the Communion imagery in the text, these shouldn't sound "churchy". Good Friday is the one time in the Christian year when the Mass is not celebrated and communion not re-enacted on site. Wagner created new instruments for a purpose. The photo shows the original "bells" used in Bayreuth in Wagner's time.

Detlev Roth replaced Iain Patterson  at short notice. I was pleased, because Roth is highly regarded and experienced in a broad repertoire, other than Wagner. His voice has more natural colour than a traditional Wagnerian, so he sang Amfortas with more flexibility that we associate with the part. There are a lot of heavy low voices in this opera, and Roth's relative brightness was different, but not wrong. Picking Roth was a wise choice. He was an interesting counterbalance to Tomlinson's Gurnemanz of the Ages.

A full version of this review, with cast list, is here in Opera Today.

Parsifal Bayreuth 2012 full streaming

Wagner Parsifal from Bayreuth 2012: full stream download  HERE. This is the Stefan Herheim production with Burkhard Fritz, Kwangchul Youn, Susan Maclean. This is the one that avoids the pretentious pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo. Since when did Klingsor and Kundry exist in the New Testament? Or Amfortas and Titurel and the whole Grail Knights community, for that matter. Anyone who seriously thinks Parsifal is theologically sound is nuts. Instead, here we can reflect on who the characters might be and how they relate to each other. And indeed, how Parsifal connects to the social and political forces that shaped Wagner's time. Fake piety we can get any time. But those who seriously care about Wagner and his times will get something from this one. It's psychological, and spiritual, on a thoughtful level.

Religion vs Religiosity : Wagner Parsifal Met

This production of Wagner's Parsifal, directed by  François Girard, premiered in Lyons last year. The Met, being a far wealthier house, was able to assemble a truly spectacular cast: Jonas Kaufmann, René Pape, Katarina Dalayman, Peter Mattei and Evgeny Nikitin. Success guaranteed, even if the production is European and modern. These performances set new benchmarks. This Parsifal will be the stuff of legend for decades to come.

"Hört ihr den Ruf?". From the moment Pape starts to sing, we realize that this will be no routine Parsifal. Gurnemanz apperars in normal street clothes, so you concentrate on the man he is and what he says, without the filter of fancy dress costume. This makes for an uncommonly direct portrayal.  Pape enunciates the long recitatives with careful deliberation, his phrasing natural, each word measured so its meaning cannot be missed. Like the Wanderer in Siegfried, Gurnemanz knows he cannot change the past, but might glimpse the future. The Knights mock Kundry,  just as she mocked Jesus. Gurnemanz shows her compassion. Pape's voice warms when he addresses her. In the final act, he touches her face with great tenderness: you wonder if there's more to their relationship than Wagner lets on.  A sub-theme of sexual repression runs through the opera. A basic understanding of Wagner's ideas on nature, human and otherwise, should alert us as to what Parsifal might really mean. Fearful of Kundry, the Community blocks out part of the balance so necessary for growth.

This production, directed by François Girard with designs by Michael Levine, interprets Parsifal in connection with the breadth of Wagner's vision infinitely more perceptively. Fundamentally Parsifal isn't "about" Christianity at all, though Christian icons abound. The Knights of the Grail didn't exist, and Klingsor is sheer myth.  The very idea that any one group should "own" the Grail contradicts the very idea of Christianity, where each time Mass is said, communities  all over the world re-enact the Communion and the idea of redemption.  If anything Parsifal is a veiled critique of established religion. Just as Wagner challenges capitalsim in the Ring,  in Parsifal he challenges conventional piety. The Grail Knights hate Klingsor because he uses magic to achieve his aims. Yet they themselves practise superstition. Good Friday commemorates the Crucifixion. It doesn't, of itself, create miracles. The Knights talk the talk, and walk the walk (the processions) but even Gurnemanz can't, at first, understand who Parsifal is and why he seemingly defiles the holy day by turning up in his grubbies.

Religion and religiosity are very different things. Parsifal is more Siegfried than Jesus.  He's a posthumous child whose background is obscure: all we know are his parents' names, although Kundry, like Brünnhilde, may know more than she's letting on.  Like Siegfried, Parsifal  is an innocent unpolluted by the world (another reference to Wagner's Romantic ideas of Nature). But unlike Siegfried, who thinks only of himself and the immediate moment, Parsifal learns through compassion. "Durch Mitleid wissend, der reine Tor", can grow and develop, and become the Saviour releasing Amfortas from his wound.  He regains the Spear that pierced Jesus' body on the Cross. He baptises Kundry, who thus (in this non-misogynistic production) can greet the Grail. Yet hang on!  Jesus was the Son of God: Parsifal is the son of an obscure human being. Imbuing him with semi-divine powers is sacrilege.  And in any case nothing in the Gospels suggests that the spear at the Crucifixion had magic powers. Miracles come from God, if you believe, not from inanimate objects. The Grail Community believes in things but not in the concepts that mark true faith.

Parsifal works as a spiritual experience because the music is sublime. It can detoxify our ears, clearing out the mental muzak that pollutes our normal lives.  The diaphanous textures, and the reverential tempi operate on our psyches, putting us in a kind of zen state where we're receptive to spiritual urges. Parsifal can be soporific in the wrong hands, but let's not forget that the REM state of sleep is physiologically important, connected with dreams, memory and deep refreshment. No wonder Parsifal evokes spiritual feelings even if the narrative is fundamentally non-religious.

With Jonas Kaufmann as Parsifal, one can believe. He sings like a God. In the First Act, Kaufmann has relatively little to sing, because Parsifal is still in embryo, so to speak. Kaufmann's eyes observe everything keenly: he's learning with every moment that passes. Because Siegfried knew no fear, he was easily fooled. Parsifal, on the other hand, is feared by strangers because they can sense instinctively that he has a mind of his own.

In Klingsor's Zauberschloss, Parsifal kills the Flower Maiden's lovers - that's why the scene is awash with blood, as the text makes perfectly clear. Parsifal kills without malice, just as he killed the Swan who led him to the Grail community.  He's still very much on a learning curve.In any case, Blood flows all over this opera. There are so many references to blood, death and birth that it's surprising how restrained this staging really is.

The Flower Maidens in this production are powerfully realized. They are beautiful, but close up we can see they are wearing wigs and have identikit painted masks. The choreography is by Carolyn Choa. The women are grouped in the shape of a lotus, so when they bend and move, they look like a giant lotus opening its petals. Choa choreographed Anthony Minghella's Madama Butterfly. While the use of the colour red also figures, the intention's quite different. The Lotus is a Buddhist symbol of purity, shooting up sullied from the mud beneath a lake. Parsifal, by implication.  The reference is also to the Buddhist way of Compassion Wagner was reading about at the time he was working on Parsifal.  That's yet another reason for not taking the "Christian" aspects of the opera too literally. Parsifal offers Compassion as an alternative to the self-righteous judgementalism of the Grail community. Buddhists don't believe in deities but in concepts of good ethics. Anyone who lives with selfess virtue can attain Boddhisatva. Interestingly, when the Knights of the Grail first gathered in Act One, they, too, formed a circle like a lotus, though it didn't last. A small detail, perhaps, but absolutely relevant.

The scene is nott gory. The floor is covered, but it's shiny like a mirror, reflecting what's above it.  A bed descends on which Kundry attempts to seduce Parsifal  It's pure white, but as Kundry moves about, she stains the sheets red. As the Flower Miadens dance, the water turns their dresses pink, in a parody of girliness. They lean on spears, like pole dancers. They are  mocking the Spear as Kundry mocked Jesus, but also making a statement about the misogyny of the Grail community and of the established Church.

Katarina Dalayman's Kundry is flesh and blood woman in a negligée. Waltraud Meier's wild animal Kundry in the Nicholas Lenhoff production remains a tour de force, defining the role at its most savage.. But Dalayman is right for Girard's humanist Parsifal, and the scene on the bed gives her a chance to show Kundry's quintessential vulnerability.  Dalayman is good, and would shine more had we not been blinded by the glory of Kaufmann's singing.

The Second Act marks  a turning point in Parsifal's journey towards self-knowledge. Just as he is about to succumb to lust, Parsifal thinks of Amfortas's suffering.  With tremendous force, Kaufmann sings "Amfortas! Die Wunde! Die Wunde!", and then with heartfelt agony "Furchtbare Klage!". His voice carries such authority that it seems to obliterate everything around him. His singing is so powerful that quite frankly, it doesn't matter how he  catches the Spear, or how Kundry curses him. He's invincible because he has found his Mission.

Yet Parsifal still has a long way to go before he achieves his destiny. In the Final Act, the Grail Community is falling apart, the Knights scavenging for survival in a  post-apocalyptic wasteland.  The ground is parched and cracked.  Water and blood are fluids, both essential for life. Yet even at this nadir, there is hope. When Pape sings "...der .Lenz ist da!" he prepares the way for Parsifal's  "die Halme, Blüten und Blumen", fresh, open meadows rather than the hothouse flowers of Klingsor's realm. But perhaps it's also an echo of Sieglinde's "Du bist der Lenz". Nonetheless the Grail Community is still so hidebound by pointless rules that even Gurnemanz can't recognize The Spear when Parsifal places it before him.

"Der Irmis und der Leiden Pfade kam ich, soll ich mich denen jetzt entwunden wähnen"  When Kaufmann sings of Parsifal's struggles, his voice expresses genuine anguish. Just as the Spear was once forged in flames, Parsifal has matured through suffering. Amfortas's wound can be healed by the Spear; Parsifal's wounds make him who he is now. He uses the Spear to help others. The Shrine is opened, and it would appear that the Community revives.  Wagner's instructions are that a white dove appears over Parsifal's head. Anyone with a basic grasp of theology recognizes the reference to Jesus. Kaufmann's timbre is so strong and pure that you can suspend belief for an instant.  Superlative performances, too, from Peter Mattei (Amfortas) and Evgeny Nikitin as Klingsor. In any ordinary production, they'd shine. In this luxury cast, there wasn't any weak link. Daniele Gatti's conducting highlighted the drama. I can remember a Bernard Haitink Parsifal where the tempi were so slow that that it would have worked better as audio. Beautiful, but Parsifal is a work for the stage.

Wagner was an artist, and for him, art transcended all else. Parsifal is a miraculous work of art, utterly convincing on its own terms. But it's art, not religion. Wagner adapted Icelandic sagas for the Ring, and medieval legend for Tristan und Isolde. Adapting the Gospels for his own purposes would have been perfectly logical. If anything, Girard's Parsifal makes me appreciate the true spirituality in the opera, rather than the pseudo-Christian mumbo-jumbo.

Jonas Kaufmann's Parsifal - early preview

Jonas Kaufmann will be singing Parsifal at the Met this time next year. Since these things are planned years in advance, those who knew, knew. But click on this link to see a promotion video. Not that we need any persuading!  On HD and apparently online too. The really devoted should get to Lyon from 6th March this year for the premiere of the production.  (Link to Lyon Opera Parsifal page.) It's easier to travel to Lyon and less hassle.

Katarina Dalayman (who can do real Wagner), Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape.Not a dud among them. Is the Met making amends to Wagner's ghost after that disgraceful Götterdämmerung? Please read my analysis of the Met's descent into banality in that Ring HERE. (covering all four opera, tracing the descent from good theory to shabby non-singing, non-direction)

Wagner Parsifal ENO Tomlinson review

Wagner's Parsifal returned to the ENO Coliseum last night. It's the hallowed Nikolas Lenhoff production first seen in London in 1999, commemorated in the 2005 DVD from Baden Baden (see more here)  It's extra special because of Sir John Tomlinson. He's a Great Britiish Institution.

In years to come, Tomlinson will retire gracefully so any opportunity to hear this great Wagnerian in a major role is to be cherished. He is one of the few singer actors who can command a stage, occupying it by sheer strength of personality.It doesn't matter if time has frayed the edges of Tomlinson's majestic voice. The centre is still firm and authoritative. Gurnemanz is wise because he's experienced. Tomlinson convinces because he is, too. Perfect fit. One day, we'll look back and be able to say we heard him still in his prime as this striking Gurnemanz. 

Stuart Skelton impressed when he warmed up. The further he gets away from "innocent fool" the better he functions, which says positive things about him. Iain Patterson and Tom Fox were Amfortas and Klingsor erespectively. Waltraud Meier created this Kundry so indelibly in Baden-Baden that it would be unfair to compare her to anyone else. Jane Dutton, called in at short notice, sang heroically in the circumstances. Don't assume that because Titurel is little more than a husk that the few moments he sings don't count. Andrew Greenan's sturdy, resonant singing made Titurel feel like a powerful life force despite the decreptitude around him.


Everyone in the audience, though, seemed to want to talk about the production itself.  What I like about this production is that it raises questions and suggests multiple meanings. Immediately, the first scene confronts the inner reality of Monsalvat. The crater in the wall is a dramatic metaphor for what has happened to Monsalvat. The community has been knocked off its normal orbit, so to speak, shattered by the impact of Amfortas's tragedy. Everything's out of alignment, cosmically and spiritually. The community moves about in slow motion as if in traumatic shock.

Jon Vickers pulled out of Tannhäuser because he supposedly thought it was irreligious. Yet Parsifal was one of his great roles, and the theology in Parsifal is outright blasphemy.  Despite the Good Friday, Communion wine and  Grail themes, Wagner's mainly interested in Christianity insofar as it provides material for his own dramatic ideas such as sacrifice and redemption. In the Bible, Mary Magdalen is a marginal figure. In Parsifal, Kundry is the pivot that connects Jesus to the Devil (Klingsor) to the Knights and ultimately to Parsifal, their true Saviour, rather than Christ.The Knights may be misogynistic, but Wagner isn't. His heroes are often women. Kundry is kin to Brünnhilde, who rights wrongs even if it means going against the Gods. You could compare the ennui that falls on Monsalvat to the way the Gods in Das Rheingold suffer when they're deprived of golden apples.

Downplaying the cod-Christianity in Parsifal opens out a wider perspective of Wagner's ideas. The Knights of the Grail didn't exist, Kundry can't have lived a thousand years.  But the First Emperor of China did.  Significantly, Nikolas Lehnhoff's original production was devised in the wake of the first big exhibition of the Terracotta Armies in Europe. While that's not so apparent to us now, in 1999 the references would have been obvious. The First Emperor wanted to be immortal. He built his palace on a lake of liquid mercury, which gave him pretty much the same symptoms as Amfortas. The zombie-like pace in Montsalvat had an ironic precedent. Hence the Knights are dressed like Terracotta Warriors. They embody the idea of a military order whose mission is spiritual and cosmic. Lenhoff even has Amfortas crawl into a pit like those in the excavations in Xian.  The Knights are regimented, stiff and unexpressive, intensifying the contrast between their "virtue" and the wild animal sensibility of Kundry and the young Parsifal.

The Flower maidens represent Nature, too, but an ultimately poisoned version. Lenhoff's realization is beautifully lit, and the chorus moves enticingly. In nature, petals and scent trap bees for pollination. These Flowermaidens have pretty, petal-like sleeves, but their headdresses are like stamens, and they wield pistils (in a bizarre imitation of the Knight's weapons). Yet the headdresses also reference Tang Dynasty tomb figures. Beautiful, but deadly.


Similarly, Lenhoff and his designers (Raimund Bauer and Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) portray Klingsor and Parsifal in the Third Act as bizarre inventions on a Samurai theme.  Tinturel's costume refers to the tomb where a prince was found encased in chain mail made of jade, reputed to confer eternal life. Warriors, but aliens, outside the Christian tradition, just as the Knights of the Grail really are.

Lenhoff  keeps the Parsifal-Kundry-Knights dynamic occupying the foreground, with Gurnemanz as mediator, because this is the centre of the drama. Attention shifts from kitsch medievalism back to universal themes like sacrifice and eternal life. The non-western references are background, so they enhance if you notice them, but don't intrude, though even the most inattentive observer should be wondering why these aren't Proper Christians. Because they're not and never were!

Liberating the narrative from the pseudo-religious trappings frees the drama. This production is infinitely more dramatic than Klaus Michael Grüber's 2002 Parsifal at the Royal Opera House where the Knights were so comatose that they had to be moved on pulleys dragged across the stage. Haitink dutifully conducted at a funereal pace, perhaps in keeping with the idea of Monsalvat Moribund, but more of a mystical than a theatrical experience. Mark Wigglesworth responds to the livelier staging with acuity. What his conducting may lack in refinement, it's made up for with full-bodied vigour. Amfortas hovers between life and death, but it's not good for the whole Grail community to stay that way. Parsifal represents movement and life.

Which leads to the conclusion. Kundry is baptised and now appears in a shroud. Ironically this is one moment when Christian ideas do apply. Kundry is dead but her soul lives on. By her spirit she's helped redeem the kingdom. Thus I don't have any problem with her walking along the railway track. Symbolically, she's heading "back to source" from whence she, and the Knights, and all mankind, have come. You don't  need a dove when you've got Kundry as dove. The railway track may also be a reminder oof the Rainbow Bridge in Das Rheingold, which marked a transition. This time, though, it's a path to genuine salvation.

As usual the use of English doesn't help meaning. "I have an idea" sings Parsifal, except musically it's scanned " I have an i (long pause) dea", which sounds like he's telling Gurnemanz that he has "an eye, dear". Then Gurnemanz, instead of telling Parsifal "suche dir, Gänser, die Gans!", talks about ducklings, losing the punch as it were. Sometimes deliberate humour serves a purpose, as in Orsini's drunken songs in Lucrezia Borgia, but in Parsifal, I'm not sure jokes fit.
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Photos : Richard Hubert Smith, courtesy ENO

Wagner Parsifal Lehnhoff DVD

Nicholas Lenhoff's Wagner Parsifal comes to the ENO tonight. It's well known from the 2004 staging at Baden Baden which is available on DVD. It's generally a respected production although there will always be those who feel threatened by anything that's not museum piece. Certainly Lenhoff is a cut above the average (excluding the Alden brothers who are so good)

For the link to the review of the 2011 ENO Parsifal at the Coliseum, see HERE.

Please follow this link to a review in Opera Today from 6 years ago. "First, Lehnhoff has an unorthodox view of Gurnemanz, whom he characterizes not as the sacerdotal father-figure familiar from conventional productions, but as a reactionary, unhinged authoritarian bereft of genuine human feeling. Second, Lehnhoff finds that if there is any redemptive message in Parsifal, it describes an enlightened humankind that has discarded impotent, atavistic religious ritual and doctrine. ....Lehnhoff believes Parsifal is essentially a utopian work, where utopia is a dynamic principle that has nothing to do with religious tribalism or any other fixed identity." Unorthodox, but not amiss. Livelier too than the ROH staging, where the Knights were wheeled on and off stage on a pallet, like frozen corpses..

When i saw this DVD I was entranced by Kent Nagano's playing, so lucid and transparent yet not  specially drawn out. Enough slow mo in the opera!  What I noticed at the time was Waltraud Meier's Kundry, a wild, feral creature  totally at odds with the Knights, as stiff and immobile as Terracotta Warriors. That's a point since the Emperor who ordered the warriors believed in an elixir of Immortality, without which he and the nation would wither away. Most interesting is the dynamic between Kundry and the Knights, Gurnemanz, Parsifal and Amfortas and the striking apparition that is Titurel. As described in the review "Thomas Hampson’s Amfortas is not, as would be customary, an object of mixed reverence and pity, but he is relentlessly pursued and harassed by his desperate knights. He never enters in solemn procession, but always in full flight from his own followers, frantic to evade their demand that he celebrate their liturgy. This Amfortas must have the strength to run. Accordingly, Hampson’s Amfortas is less prostrate, less helpless, and more histrionic and physical than most."

Obviously we won't be having Nagano, Hampson, Meier and Ventris (whom I think is brilliant) but that's too much to expect. At least we'll have a thought provoking production which will make us think about what the characters mean. Better to be challenged to engage with the opera than auto pilot wail. No-one needs to get everything right away, but with Wagner, the process of engaging is part of the experience.  Stagings like this don't come round very often.