Wagner - Parsifal

 

Yesterday I was able to attend to a live performance of Wagner's Parsifal thanks to the generosity of HVC who was kind enough to pass on a ticket to me. It is certainly one of my favourite operas. My first encounter with it, more than 25 years ago, was one of the defining epiphanies in my musical narrative. On record it is the Karajan version which has left such an indelible mark. I find it a noble, spacious, even grandiose reading, but it does not collapse under its own weight. Superb orchestral playing, exquisite dramatic pacing and beautiful voices: it leaves nothing to be desired. Some find the sound to be somewhat in-your-face. It is true that this early digital recording is not of the subtlest, but it does not detract from the stupendous qualities of the whole. 

So any live performance has formidable competition to my ears. I saw a live version in Berlin, a little less than 10 years ago, directed by Christian Thielemann but I remember precious little of it (apart from the fact that I arrived at the Deutsche Oper completely drenched in sweat as my flight into Berlin was late). So now then a new production at the Brussels Munt, with the house orchestra directed by Hartmut Haenchen, and directed by experimental theater maker Romeo Castellucci. An overview of international reviews of this production can be found here. The NYT review is here.

After all this ink has been spilled - pro and contra - it is unnecessary to go into great detail. Suffice it to say that this might have been a great Parsifal, if not for two major (musical) shortcomings: Jan-Hendrik Rootering's monochrome rendering of Gurnemanz, and the similarly colourless support from the orchestra. With respect to the former, most reviewers seem to agree that Rootering's interpretation is not great. By the time of the long monologue in Act III one has thoroughly tired of G's bland recitations. As a result, the architecture sags. Haenchen's conducting seems to be evoke very different responses (ranging from 'ordentlich' to 'great'). I won't say it is entirely without merit. It is true that Haenchen conducts a very brisk Parsifal but he does that in a very subtle way. There is certainly room for the music to breathe, and a lot has a chamber music-like qualities. But what the music misses is muscle tone, liveliness, mystery. The orchestra sounded wooden and uninspired, in the louder passages sometimes even coarse. The rather dry acoustics of the Munt certainly add to the challenge of sustaining the long lines. So that was major disappointment. Maybe my ears have been spoiled by the (unnaturally?) luxuriant 'cadillac ride' of Karajan's BPO ... 

However, that being said, the production was saved by a number of very commendable voices (Anna Larson as a grave, husky Kundry, and the young American tenor Andrew Richards in a lithe, introspective title role) and by Castellucci's poetically suggestive and thought provoking production. Throughout the listener is tickled by striking and beautiful images that raise all sorts of philosophical questions. But I've also been asking myself whether it is the point at all of going to an opera to solve intellectual riddles whilst listening to some of the greatest music ever composed. Maybe, to really to do justice to music and production, one would have to go and listen not once but twice or even three times. Now that I have seen this Parsifal, I could use a few days to mull it over, try to make sense of the puzzle that Wagner/Castellucci throws at us. And then in a subsequent audition it would be easier to concentrate on the whole thing without being distracted by puzzling details, as to why the German sheperd or the snake or the three guys in working clothes that storm the scene in the first act. 

Tenor Andrew Richards has a charming blog in which he reports on his experiences during rehearsal and performance of this Parsifal with disarming candidness.