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| Klingsor (Tómas Tómasson) and the Flowermaidens Images: Ruth Walz |
Schiller Theater
Amfortas – Lauri Vasar
Gurnemanz – René Pape
Parsifal – Andreas Schager
Klingsor – Tómas Tómasson
Kundry – Anna Larsson
Titurel – Matthias Hölle
Squires – Sónia Grané, Natalia
Skrycka, Florian Hoffmann, Michael Porter
First Knight of the Grail – Michael
Smallwood
Second Knight of the Grail – Dominic
Barberi
Flowermaidens – Katerina Tretyakova,
Adriane Queiroz, Anja Schlosser, Sónia Gráne, Narine Yeghiyan, Natalia Skrycka
Voice from Above – Natalia
Skrycka
Dmitri Tcherniakov (director,
set designs)
Elena Zaytseva (costumes)
Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)
Jens Schroth (dramaturgy)
Staatsopernchor Berlin (chorus master: Martin Wright)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
With this, my third visit to
Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Parsifal, I have
now seen the production as many times as I did that of Stefan Herheim at
Bayreuth. I shall spare you the ritual Herheim encomium on this occasion;
anyone interested may seek out either my earlier reviews (here,
here,
and here),
or the chapter I have devoted to the staging in my book, After
Wagner. Suffice it to say that, developing as it has each year, again
like Herheim’s staging, Tcherniakov’s production is now thoroughly established
as one of the most thought-provoking, deeply troubling stagings since Herheim’s
breathed its last in 2012. (Again, should anyone be interested, I shall have an
article in the July issue of The Wagner
Journal, looking at both stagings and their relationship to
psychoanalysis.) It is just what musical drama should be, and just what
clueless reactionaries loathe – because, like all great drama, it points the
finger at them. If you want somehow to feel better about yourself, then Parsifal and Wagner are certainly not
for you, any more than Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Mozart are. If, however, you
want to begin to understand why you should not feel so good about yourself,
here you are.
For at the heart of
Tcherniakov’s staging, it seems to me, perhaps increasingly so, is the Freudian,
indeed Nietzschean insight (not just theirs, by any means) that human existence
is founded upon a lie. The first chapter of Beyond
Good and Evil opens with the challenge: ‘The will to truth, which
misdirects us toward many adventures, that fabled truthfulness, before which
all philosophers hitherto have paid obeisance … why not rather untruth? … Who
is Oedipus here? Who the Sphinx?’ From such perspectivism (back) to (the birth
or death of) tragedy is, in a way, a splendidly anti-Nietzschean journey,
especially when it involves the Wagner drama Nietzsche affected above all to
hate. Here, nevertheless, it is – and it is perhaps not idle to note here the
Russian –Mussorgskian (Khovanschina)
and Dostoevskian – ‘look’ to Tcherniakov’s designs and direction for a
Monsalvat community of what we might well call Old Believers. (But do they,
fundamentally, believe? Why should we take them at their word?) Nihilism needs
to be fought against, but how, and how could such battle succeed? Is the only
conclusion itself nihilistic? No wonder the world of Dostoevsky seems hinted at
– although it is rightly left to us to do much of that thinking; Nietzsche’s
perspectivism is incorporated rather than denied (aufgehoben, if you will).
Titurel increasingly seems to
me one of the most important keys to the work; he certainly is to the staging. Sung
here by Matthias Hölle, there is little doubt that he is continuing to run the
show. Indeed, as part of the ritual, whatever that ritual may be, he puts
himself in his coffin, to emerge again once ‘it’ is over. Amfortas, whilst he
can hardly be ignored in any production, seems perhaps still more central to
the first and third acts than often he is. The identification with and
perversion of traditional images of Christ – tradition is a dangerous, if
necessary thing – comes across more strongly than ever on this occasion. He is
presented as an object for us to behold, to admire, whether we like it or no;
draining of blood for the ritual from his own side harrows, yet we cannot look
away. There is, indeed, perhaps greater emphasis on the history of this strange
community than in previous years. The slide show in which Gurnemanz educates
his charges with images past – recollections, actual or false, of Wagner’s own Siena
Cathedral taking pride of place – makes its point especially clearly. Whatever
it is that is going on, whatever it is that is taking its inspiration and its
justification from this alleged history, is losing its power to convince. Lies
do that, although that does not stop us telling them, believing them.
The shock of the second act
naturally registered most strongly of all when new in 2015. What we see when the curtain rises seems entirely new,
although we come to realise that its actual framework remains from the first
act; it has, however, almost literally been whitewashed. Presentation of
Klingsor as an almost stereotypical tabloid image of a paedophile – one can
almost see the chasing headline ‘MONSTER!’ – replete with repellent comb-over,
surrounding himself with Flowermaidens as little girls in flowery dresses (some
of them with dolls, performing the same role in miniature) continues to provide
a discomfiting way in to the exploration of Parsifal’s sexuality that lies at
the very heart of this act. Klingsor’s overt wandering of hands when he sits himself
next to Kundry and her revulsion remind us there is nothing voluntary about
this alliance, and, more generally, that abuse breeds abuse. So when Kundry
makes Parsifal remember (or invent?) his past, the abusive lineage is extended
further. (‘Who is Oedipus here? Who the Sphinx?’) The dumb show of recollection
in which his mother walks in on his first tentative steps with a girl instils
greater trauma than previously: upon Parsifal, visibly shaking for much of what
follows (brilliantly acted by Andreas Schager), but also seemingly upon Kundry,
whose production from her sinister bag of tricks of a white shirt, bloodied
from a wound like that of Amfortas (perhaps it actually is from his wound?)
provides a more overt connection with the business of the outer acts than we
have previously seen. Parsifal was not the only one to be shaken by what he
experienced; I was too. No wonder he drives the spear through Kingsor at the
close of that act. The trauma of male adolescent sexuality is perhaps less
often treated with in opera than one might expect. Tcherniakov makes a huge
step in redressing that imbalance.
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| Parsifal (Andreas Schager) and the Flowermaidens |
Memory plays tricks – as we see
on stage. It is therefore perhaps unwise to attempt extended comparisons
between different incarnations of staging and performance. Certainly Daniel
Barenboim’s conducting and the playing of the Staatskapelle Berlin would have
little to fear from such comparisons. Suffice it to say that this great orchestra’s
immersion in Wagner’s music continues to reward. Here, it was the darkness of
sound at the darkest of Wagner’s moments that perhaps made the greatest
impression upon me, the prelude to the third act a case in point, still more so
the continued development of its material throughout the act. Lower strings
told one so much of what one needed to know, even if one were somehow managing
to ignore, or to misunderstand, what was going on onstage. Barenboim’s ideal
combination of structural command and dynamic impetus underlay everything we
heard. Revealing encounters between stage action and pit action (Wagner’s
fabled orchestral Greek Chorus) were many; that between the rotational cycles
(see Warren Darcy’s chapter, ‘“Die Zeit ist da”: Rotational Form and Hexatonic
Magic in Act 2, Scene 1, in William Kinderman and Katherine Syer (ed.), A Companion to Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’) and
Klingsor’s creepy, childish self-rotation centre-stage is but one instance. The
stage listens to the pit, and vice versa.
So too, of course, is that the
case when it comes to our cast of singers and outstanding chorus (and extras
too). Schager’s portrayal of the title role once again offered a near-ideal
sound; he is unquestionably the
Heldentenor of our age. His acting skills, as previously mentioned, are
almost as crucial, especially his ability to evoke all manner of visual
adolescent awkwardness. Anna Larsson’s Kundry offered something intriguingly
new when we saw her too caught in the headlights of her own (well, ultimately
Klingsor’s) trap in the final quarter of an hour or so of the second act.
Otherwise, she sometimes seemed a little less settled, less compelling in the
role than her predecessors, although her vocal tone often proved a considerable
pleasure in itself. Lauri Vasar’s Amfortas was another new assumption. I found
it quite spellbinding: as rich and/or as agonised of tone as need be, in
perfect, often complex, relation to what we saw onstage. His way with words was
equally impressive. When speaking of richness of tone, one can hardly fail to
think of René Pape, whose reprisal of Gurnemanz continued to offer the
excellence this production demands (and almost always receives). His almost
slow-motion stabbing of Kundry gives the lie to claims that his musico-dramatic
gifts are only, or even mostly, vocal. Tómas Tómasson has made this Klingsor
his own – and continues to do so: of the outstanding performances to be seen
and heard here, his is far from the least. Smaller parts were all well taken,
often outstandingly so. This is a Parsifal
that will not let go.
