Nationaltheater
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| Parsifal (Jonas Kaufmann) and the Flowermaidens Images: Ruth Walz |
Amfortas – Christian Gerhaher
Titurel – Bálint Szabó
Gurnemanz – René PapeParsifal – Jonas Kaufmann
Klingsor – Wolfgang Koch
Kundry – Nina Stemme
First Knight of the Grail – Kevin Conners
Second Knight of the Grail – Callum Thorpe
Squires – Paula Iancic, Annika Schlicht, Manuel Günther, Matthew Grills
Flowermaidens – Golda Schultz, Selene Zanetti, Annika Schlicht, Nolevuyiso Mpofu, Paula Iancic, Rachael Wilson
Voice from Above – Rachael Wilson
Pierre Audi (director)
Georg Baselitz, Christof Hetzer
(set designs)Florence von Gerkan, Tristan Sczesny (costumes)
Urs Schönebaum (lighting)
Klaus Bertisch, Benedikt Stampfli (dramaturgy)
Children’s Chorus, Chorus and
Extra Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus masters: Stellario Fagone and
Sören Eckhoff)
Bavarian State OrchestraKirill Petrenko (conductor)
And so, this year’s Munich
Opera Festival and this year’s Bavarian State Opera season came to a close with
everyone’s favourite Bühnenweihfestspiel,
Parsifal, in the final outing this
time around for Pierre Audi’s new production. With a cast of dreams, an
orchestra of distinction conducted by Kirill Petrenko, not to mention a
world-class opera chorus, what could be not to like? Nothing for much of the
audience, it would seem. Alas, for me it proved a grave disappointment, for
which the responsibility must either lie with me, Audi, or both of us.
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| Amfortas (Christian Gerhaher) and members of the chorus |
I am not sure I have ever seen
a production of Parsifal so lacking
in – well, anything. Goodness knows one can argue about what this work is
about, what its problems might be, what its extraordinary virtues might be,
even what it might be made to be about, and so on and forth. Goodness knows
directors can come up with execrable concepts or execute their concepts, good
or bad, less than well. I speak from the bitter experience of having attended a
good few, not least the present Uwe
Eric Laufenberg farrago at Bayreuth, which somehow manages both to be
intensely offensive in its Islamophobia and
unbearably boring. Audi, however, seems to have no discernible thoughts about
it whatsoever. I almost have nothing beyond that to say, so shall keep the rest
of this very short. Its selling point – to some, anyway – seems always to have
been designs by the strangely overrated visual artist, Georg Baselitz. They
struck me as very much in keeping with what else I have seen from Baselitz; if
you like to look at this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you would
have liked to look at. The first act, all of it, is set in a forest. For some
reason, the knights take off their outer clothes to reveal unflattering fattish
naked suits, which suggest a degree of androgyny, although that suggestion
seems later – by the Flowermaidens – to be refuted. The second act is barely
staged at all, yet without any of the virtues of a concert performance. The
third act returns to the forest. The end. To think that this succeeded a
production by Peter Konwitschny beggars belief.
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| Parsifal and members of the chorus |
Yet so oppressive are the
designs, for that is really all the production can be, so different is the
experience from a concert performance, that much very good – although not, I
think, quite so good as many seem to have thought – musical work went largely
to waste. Petrenko’s conducting was excellent, although it never seemed to me
to dig so deep as, say, the work of a Barenboim
or indeed, in days not so very distant, a Haitink.
Still, there could be no real complaints either with Petrenko or his orchestra.
His tempi in the first act, at least earlier on, felt relatively swift; I have
no idea whether they actually were. Yet they never felt rushed; his was a
fleet, at least slightly Boulezian conception, until it was not. For there was
plenty of space, well taken, to manage the work’s ebb and flow – whilst seeming,
and doubtless to a certain extent, being managed by the work’s ebb and flow.
Interestingly, the opening of the third act, its Prelude in particular, sounded
more anguished than anything in the second. If only some of the pain implied
for Parsifal’s wayfaring had been otherwise reflected in the staging. This was
certainly a reading that developed and, by any standards, marked a fine debut
run in the work.
One oddity: I do not think I
have heard such feeble Grail bells. According to the programme, however, this
was a special instrument modelled by the Bayreuth piano company, Steingraeber,
after the instrument used at the 1882 premiere. If so, the Meister was – not for
the first time, nor even for the last – surely mistaken. The Bayreuth bells we
know from, say, Karl Muck’s 1927 recording, in their 1926 design pack sound to
my ears more impressive in every way. Or maybe I am just too wedded to what I
think I ‘ought’ to hear.
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| Kundry (Nina Stemme) and Parsifal |
Singing was certainly
distinguished, although it was really the Amfortas and, perhaps more oddly, the
Klingsor who stood out for me. Christian Gerhaher has recently, surprisingly,
seemed more at home in opera than in Lieder,
and so it was here. His fabled beauty of tone was never an end in itself but
put to sweet, agonising dramatic work – alongside the fascinating suggestion,
apparent in his eyes if nowhere else on stage, of a crazed, ecstatic religious
visionary. Could that not have been the director’s concept, if he had no other?
It would certainly have opened up all manner of possibilities. Wolfgang Koch’s
way with words, music, and their combination marked him out as an uncommonly
excellent Klingsor – even if Klingsors rarely disappoint. Again, one learned
much simply from observing his facial expressions. Jonas Kaufmann offered lovely
moments, lovely passages, and a great deal of verbal acuity too in his
assumption of the title role. However, his voice really did not sound as I
recall it from not so long ago; there were times when it sounded not only
strained but worn. Let us hope that this was just an off-day (a highly relative
off-day). He and Nina Stemme as Kundry were certainly not helped by Audi’s
non-production. I am not entirely convinced that this is Stemme’s ideal role,
but it is surely not unreasonable for us to adjust our expectations according
to a particular artist’s abilities and conception. Something a little wilder
either on stage or in voice, or ideally both, would not have gone amiss, but
again there were no grounds for true complaint. Likewise with René Pape’s
Gurnemanz. His beauty of tone
remains, yet there is now far more of a sense of verbal response than once there
was in his singing. If Parsifal,
then, is for you primarily, even exclusively, about singing and more broadly
about musical performance, you would have experienced something undoubtedly
special. If, however, it needs to be for you a drama too, I cannot imagine your
response would have been so very different from mine.
