Parsifal, Oper Leipzig, 18 April 2014

Leipzig Opera House

Parsifal – Daniel Kirch

Gurnemanz – Jan Hendrik Rootering
Klingsor – Jürgen Kurth
Kundry – Kathrin Göring
Amfortas – Mathias Hausmann
Titurel – Mitcho Borovinov
Knights of the Grail – Keith Boldt, Mitcho Borovinov
Esqures – Viktorija Kaminskaite, Jean Broekhuizen, Sebastian Fuchsberger, Tommaso Randazzo
Flowermaidens – Menna Davies, Paula Rummel, Jean Broekhuizen, Viktorija Kaminskaite, Eva Schuster, Sandra Janke
Voice from Above – Sandra Janke

Roland Aeschlimann (director, designs)

Susanne Raschig (costumes)
Lucinda Childs (movement)
Lukas Kaltenbäck (lighting)

Children’s Choir, Women of the Youth Choir, Chorus, and Additional Chorus of the Leipzig Opera (chorus master: Alessandro Zuppardo)

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Ulf Schirmer (conductor)

 

I have praised Roland Aeschlimann’s Leipzig (and Geneva) staging of Parsifal before. Its relative abstraction allows space for the audience to think, without tending towards the vacuous. It also proves durable, a significant virtue in what is a repertory piece for Oper Leipzig; this is now the third time I have seen it, and whilst there may by now be some of the attendant disadvantages of repertory staging, it continues to do its job very well. Since I have written on the production twice already (in 2009 and 2011), I shall not do so at length this time; there are no significant changes, and the interested reader may follow the links provided, which also have images from the staging. Lukas Kaltenbäck’s lighting continues both to prove atmospheric in itself and to enable the crucial demarcating role of colour in terms both of location and dramatic transformation. (For more on that, see the 2011 review.)

Last time around, I wrote that I remained ‘intrigued and equally uncertain about Aeschlimann’s Grail. Amfortas uncovers something mysterious – no problem there – and holds up a sheet which, by a trick of lighting presents what continues to remind me of a Turin Shroud-vision of Christ. I still wonder whether, even at this stage, we need something a little more substantial – in more than one sense – to offer sustenance for Monsalvat’s community.’ This time, I had fewer qualms, if any, concerning an alleged need for something ‘more substantial’. For, not only, as I wrote before, is there ‘something else, again mysterious, … revealed, which clearly replenishes the community,’ its abstraction and open-endedness enabling for the audience; there is actually – or at least there was on this occasion – something a little troubling, rather than empty, about whatever it is that is going on, without that degenerating into the all-too-easy charge that Monsalvat is … (fill in the gap for your favourite outlandish anti-Wagner accusation). It is quite right, as it were, that all is not right; this is a community in need of ‘redemption’. But nor do we have absurd anti-Wagnerian fantasies foisted upon us. Many of those inclined that way will doubtless take the opportunity to confirm themselves in their hostility, but the space permitted by the production may give some at least a pause for thought.

 

Ulf Schirmer led a decent performance, without raising the roof; the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was itself on predictably fine form. Schirmer’s conducting sometimes towards the sectional, Wagner’s ‘most subtle art’ of transition not faring so well – or rather, faring better on stage. By the same token, however, there were no particular problems; and again, the performance offered space for reflection. Choral singing was generally excellent, though there were a few moments of disconnection with the pit. A good cast had only one disappointment. Normally, Gurnemanz is the most reliable of beasts; here, Jan Hendrik Rootering was often highly uncertain of pitch in the first act, though better in the third, and dry of tone rather than moving in his narrations. Daniel Kirch impressed as Parsifal; just because there are still more difficult Wagner roles, we should not be lulled into taking a good performance of Parsifal for granted. Kirch marshalled his resources well, lasted the course, and communicated the text – by which, I mean words and music – with intelligence. Much the same could be said of Kathrin Göring’s Kundry. Göring sounded as if she was more of a lyric soprano, but that did not preclude drama, especially in the second act. Jürgen Kurth, whom I have heard before here as Klingsor, continued to do good work, and the smaller roles were taken well too.

 

For a Parsifal on Good Friday, then, this offered much on which to reflect, not least having heard the St Matthew Passion at the Thomaskirche the night before. There is nothing wrong with annual rituals such as these and much right with them; indeed, the Christian calendar remains very much part of who we are. Parsifal’s warning against ritualism endured, however – not the least achievement of this production.

Parsifal, Oper Leipzig, 22 April 2011

Leipzig Opera House

Parsifal – Stefan Vinke
Gurnemanz – James Moellenhoff
Klingsor – Jürgen Kurth
Kundry – Lioba Braun
Amfortas – Tuomas Pursio
Titurel – Roman Astakhov
First Knight of the Grail – Tommasso Randazzo
Second Knight of the Grial – Roman Astakhov
Esquires – Soula Parassidis, Jean Broekhuizen, Timothy Fallon, Norman Reinhardt
Alto solo – Claudia Huckle
Flowermaidens – Elena Tokar, Diana Schnürpel, Kathrin Göring, Soula Parassidis, Ines Reintzsch, Claudia Huckle

Roland Aeschlimann (director, designs)
Susanne Raschig (costumes)
Lucinda Childs (movement)
Ilka Weiss (assistance with designs and movement)
Lukas Kaltenbäck (lighting)

Chorus and Supplementary Chorus of the Leipzig Opera (chorus master: Volkmar Ulbrich)
Children’s Choir of the Leipzig Opera (Sophie Bauer)
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Ulf Schirmer (conductor)




Images: Andreas Birkigt
Stefan Vinke (Parsifal) with the Flowermaidens

 

Parsifal on Good Friday, in the city of Wagner’s birth: how could one resist? I had enjoyed Roland Aeschlimann’s 2006 production, a Leipzig co-production with Geneva and Nice, when seeing it two years previously, and for the most part did so again, though there were perhaps some passages, especially during the third act, when its status as a repertory piece was now a little too evident. A little sharpening up of the stage direction would do no harm. This remains, however, an interesting and attractive production, which continues to remind me of Herbert Wernicke’s woefully underrated – at least by critics – Tristan for Covent Garden (not least when one recalls the reductionist Christof Loy staging that has succeeded it). Abstraction is not only the way to proceed in Wagner: the greatest current stage interpreter of his works, Stefan Herheim, is anything but abstract. Nevertheless, abstraction works well – especially when contrasted with the irrelevant pseudo-psychology that infects a good number of current Wagner productions.

Colour, as I wrote last time around, plays an important role, both in demarcating locations and in the dramatic transformations – an especially important concept in this of all Wagner’s dramas – that occur within particular scenes. That is the aspect which perhaps above all puts me in mind of the aforementioned Wernicke Tristan. I remain intrigued and equally uncertain about Aeschlimann’s Grail. Amfortas uncovers something mysterious – no problem there – and holds up a sheet which, by a trick of lighting presents what continues to remind me of a Turin Shroud-vision of Christ. I still wonder whether, even at this stage, we need something a little more substantial – in more than one sense – to offer sustenance for Monsalvat’s community Yet, by the same token, something else, again mysterious, is revealed, which clearly replenishes the community. The open-endedness of what is going on is very much in Wagner’s spirit of intellectual exploration and continual self-questioning. Visual centrality of the spear remains very much to the benefit of the second act, though I cannot help but regret the usual awkwardness at the end, when Parsifal refers to a sign (of the Cross) that he does not make. It need not be that particular Christian sign, of course, though it may be, but to have nothing at all simply does not seem to work very well.





End of Act II: Petra Lang is pictured here; on the present occasion, she was replaced by Lioba Braun

 
Musically there was much to admire. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra sounded very much in its element, rich and dark of tone, especially in the strings. There were, especially during the first act, a few too many fluffs, not least during the Prelude, but once things had settled down, this ceased to be a problem. Much the same could be said of Ulf Schirmer’s direction. He may not come across as a great Wagnerian, but he is a dependably good one. Line is generally maintained, though parts of the third act dragged a little (not, I should stress, a matter of speed, but of dramatic momentum), though the Prelude to that act was world-weary indeed. Much of the cast was the same as I heard two years ago. Stefan Vinke’s Parsifal has gained a certain edge, or at least it had on the present occasion: there is still much to appreciate, but I hope the loss of freshness was temporary. James Moellenhoff’s Gurnemanz and Tuomas Pursio remain distinguished, though I sensed a certain lack of stage direction when contrasted with 2009. The major difference in the cast was Susan Maclean’s replacement by Lioba Braun, whom I had heard before as Kundry in Dresden, also in 2009. Then she was excellent, and so she was on this occasion, ever-attentive to the alchemic marriage of words and music, and notably more seductive – a matter of the production as much as anything else? – during the second act. Praise ought also to be offered to the excellent chorus, supplementary chorus, and children’s choir. Wagner’s interest in earlier music, not least as reflected in his early Das Liebesmahl der Apostel and his arrangement of Palestrina’s Stabat Mater, was evoked and translated into modern terms. Clarity and weight worked in tandem, to sometimes overwhelming effect.

Parsifal, Oper Leipzig, 4 April 2009

Images copyright Andreas Birkigt (N.B. there were no images available for the current cast, so Petra Lang will be seen in place of Susan Maclean as Kundry)

Leipzig Opera House

Parsifal – Stefan Vinke
Gurnemanz – James Moellenhoff
Klingsor – Jürgen Kurth
Kundry – Susan Maclean
Amfortas – Tuomas Pursio
Titurel – Roman Astakhov
First Knight of the Grail – Tommasso Randazzo
Second Knight of the Grial – Roman Astakhov
Esquires – Viktorija Kaminskaite, Jean Broekhuizen, Timothy Fallon, and Tiberius Simu
Alto solo – Geneviève King
Flowermaidens – Ainhoa Garmendia, Jennifer Porto, Kathrin Göring, Viktorija Kaminskaite, Ines Reintzsch and Geneviève King

Roland Aeschlimann (director, designs)
Susanne Raschig (costumes)
Lucinda Childs (movement)
Ilka Weiss (assistance with designs and movement)
Lukas Kaltenbäck (lighting)

Chorus and Supplementary Chorus of the Leipzig Opera (chorus master: Sören Eckhoff)
Children’s Choir of the Leipzig Opera (chorus mistress: Sophie Bauer)
Ladies of the Leipzig Opera Youth Choir
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Ulf Schirmer (conductor)

All told, this was an impressive Parsifal, a revival of Roland Aeschlimann’s 2006 production for Leipzig, shared with Geneva and Nice. Aeschlimann’s designs tread a careful and often revealing line between abstraction and representation. Colour plays an important role, both in demarcating locations – perhaps not in themselves always of the greatest importance, though distinction between them is – and in the dramatic transformations that occur within particular scenes. Gurnemanz’s forest is evoked without being fetishised; after the risible telegraph pole approach of Klaus Michael Grüber’s lamentable production for Covent Garden, one has to be grateful for the smallest of mercies. Thankfully, this production’s virtues extend beyond that.

I was initially a little nonplussed by what seemed to be the Grail. Amfortas uncovers whatever it is, to hold up a sheet which, by a trick of lighting – and ‘trick’ seems to be the operative word – presents a Turin Shroud-like vision of Christ. So far, so Feuerbachian, I thought, but do we not need something a little more substantial – in more than one sense – to explain the sustenance afforded to Monsalvat’s community, in decline but not yet dead? However, as the Eucharistic – if that is what it be – mystery progresses, something else is revealed, to which all turn and which clearly replenishes the community, though the precise or even imprecise nature of this far-away object, which we spy through what appears to be a tunnel to another dimension, remains unclear. What is very clear, however, is that it too is revivified by the workings of grace via Parsifal, gaining lustre and perhaps confidence, certainly becoming – visually – more multi-faceted. Aeschlimann may or may not subscribe to the Christian terms in which Wagner couches his drama but that does not appear to matter. This is a far more fruitful, open-ended approach than many, which fits moreover both with Wagner’s own intellectual approach and with the mysterious, oracle-like nature of his musical drama. For it was clear from listening and watching that Aeschlimann knows the score and not just the words; events on stage coincided with musical events. This ought to be a matter of course, yet so often is anything but.

There is also a highly visible spear on stage throughout the second act, reminding us of what is at stake, as if we could have forgotten the highly visible – and highly disturbing – wound of Amfortas and the scar of Klingsor’s hideous self-mutilation, both born of impure lust, sexual and power-related, if the two can indeed be separated. Moreover, the characters actually appear to be directed, another of those things which ought to go without saying yet is a rarer occurrence upon the contemporary opera stage than one might even reasonably hope. I liked Kundry’s uncovering of the snow to reveal the moribund community as Good Friday worked its spell – perhaps a homage to Ruth Berghaus’s celebrated Frankfurt production, in which Parsifal and Kundry rolled back grey canvases to reveal green meadows, yet more ambiguous, less strident in its desacralisation. It was far from clear that this was really an act without grace; it might well just have been a symbolisation of something far more mysterious. It is not always necessary to spell everything out.

There is no dove at the conclusion, which is no great loss for all but the most Old Bayreuthian of Parsifalians, although Stefan Herheim in his magnificent, all-encompassing 2008 production for Bayreuth managed to include it without bathos – or rather with a non-mocking mediated irony. More worrying for me was the absence of the sign of the Cross at the end of the second act. It is not that I think this must take place. However, if it does not, then it seems to me that there ought to be something, even if a polemical absence, in its stead. Otherwise, as here, Parsifal sings of something that simply is not there and it all just seems a little embarrassing – and meaningless. Such insensitivity to the text is the order of the day for many productions but is a rare exception in this production.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was on excellent form, save for a few too many fluffs from the horns. It was not a virtuoso performance, such as we might hear from the Berlin Philharmonic in this repertoire. Rather, it illuminated the score from within, with evocative woodwind, baleful liturgical brass, and marvellously yet understatedly rich in string tone. (If only one could have said the same about the preceding night’s St Matthew Passion.) Ulf Schirmer impressed as conductor. Again, his was not a reading that drew attention to itself, yet line was maintained throughout. If without quite the staggering inevitability of Bernard Haitink at Covent Garden, Schirmer did not compare unfavourably with Daniel Barenboim last month in Berlin. There was a highly dramatic conclusion to the second act, contrasting strongly and appositely with the ‘liturgical’ first and third acts, not that the distinction was – or should be – absolute. Moreover, he subtly drew attention to the links – whether outright quotation or something more allusive – with Wagner’s preceding dramas. Anyone can hear the Lohengrin quotation upon Parsifal’s shooting of the swan – and, one would hope, the Nietzschean ‘voluptuousness of Hell’ evoked by use of the Tristan-chord. Yet connections with the Ring-dramas, Die Meistersinger, and earlier works too are there to be made – and they were.

In this, Schirmer appeared to be in accord with his director and with his Parsifal. This was the first time I had heard Stefan Vinke, but I hope that it will not be the last. His is a true Heldentenor. We all have our favourite voices from the past and it can be unduly tempting to dwell upon them; but Vinke put me in mind of Jess Thomas. Thomas was perhaps no one’s favourite Siegfried or Parsifal, yet when one thinks of what we have heard since, he has evidently been underrated. Certainly one could hear Siegfried in Vinke’s voice and, moreover, one could understand through his interpretation how much of Wagner’s previous hero remained in the first act of Parsifal. The dramatic point is that Wagner’s erstwhile rebel without a consciousness has failed and therefore the problems he has raised must be revisited; something else must be attempted. For the relative obnoxiousness of Vinke’s Parsifal – and one assumes Aeschlimann’s too – would be transformed by the workings of grace into something quite different. Not that the journey was easy: I liked his near-succumbing to Kundry’s temptations for a second time.

Susan Maclean seemed to grow into her role as the temptress. Succeeding Petra Lang cannot have been easy but, as time went on, Maclean, throughout a fine actress, also became increasingly impressive vocally. The successful contrast between her character(s) in the outer acts and the second act showed that ideas, occasionally adopted, of having two singers as Kundry should probably remain filed under the heading ‘interesting’. Tuomas Pursio was an outstanding Amfortas, my still-fresh memories of Hanno Müller-Brachmann last month notwithstanding. Not only was every word of the text clearly audible; not only was every note rendered meaningful; one could readily sense the charisma of this flawed leader, who too often can seem a merely Nietzschean sick-bed caricature of décadence. Charisma and intelligence of response also represented the twin hallmarks of James Moellenhoff’s Gurnemanz. Gurnemanz should never seem like an old bore – and never does in a decent performance. Here, however, we sensed a charismatic leadership quality that helps explain why so many, whether squires or Kundry, will heed him. Jürgen Kurth was a less impressive Klingsor, seeming somewhat underpowered by contrast.

This production was not perfect; surely none has ever been. Yet it accomplished the most important thing any performance could, namely to fill me once again with wonder at the towering greatness of Wagner’s miraculous work. I did not necessarily feel that any of its difficulties had been resolved, but I felt challenged by their being posed anew.