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Wagneriana Spring 2013 Volume 10, Number 1 Das sagt sich nicht; doch bist du selbst zu ihm erkoren, bleibt dir die Kunde unverloren. — Parsifal From the President In This Issue We are thoroughly immersed in bicentennial events! The entire Wagnerian world is busy celebrating the anniversary of Wagner’s birth 200 years ago ■■ François Girard Brings Fresh with special lectures, concerts, and staged performances. There are so many Ideas to the Met’s happenings all over the world that we cannot possibly keep up with all of them. Parsifal 2 Our website has a list of events in the United States and Canada, courtesy of the Wagner Society of New York. We have received many brochures from various ■■ Metropolitan Opera Panel on Parsifal 5 venues in Europe, as well as from the Wagner Society of Washington, DC. If anyone is interested in these, please contact us. If you are in New York for the ■■ An Allegorical Ring Cycle, please check out the numerous interesting events that the New York Portrait of Richard society is offering (www.wagnersocietyny.org). Wagner with His Here in Boston, we have scheduled four very exciting events this spring. Muse 7 On April 13, at 2 p.m., at the Brookline Public Library, the journalist Jeannie ■■ Die Walküre Williams will present a wonderful documentary and exhibit titled Jon Vickers: (simulcast) 12 A Man and His Music. Vickers’s recital jacket and correspondence with Wieland ■■ The Boston Lyric Wagner will be on display. This event is free. Ms. Williams, a board member Opera’s Senta of the Wagner Society of New York, is the author of Jon Vickers: A Hero’s Life and Dutchman (foreword by Birgit Nilsson). A very few copies of her book will be available, as Speak 13 well as Barry Millington’s The Sorcerer of Bayreuth. ■■ Upcoming On May 6 the much-awaited Q&A with Heldentenor Jay Hunter Morris will Events 15 take place at the College Club, at 6 p.m. Radio personality and WGBH Host Ron Della Chiesa will moderate the Q&A, which will be followed by a reception. For tickets, go to www.jayhuntermorris.eventbrite.com or call us at 617-323- 6088. Please note that the sale of tickets will end on May 2, and there will be no ticket sales at the door. May 11 brings us a wonderful sampling of the Ring Cycle organized by the Boston Wagner Society. Each opera will be represented in this special concert continued on p. 16 Review German opera: Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. If we stay in German territory, the first true successor to François Girard Brings Fresh Parsifal is Richard Strauss’s Salome. In essence, Wagner’s Ideas to the Met’s Parsifal final masterpiece is a work that only true cognoscenti appreciate, and usually wildly. For many others, however, Parsifal; Metropolitan Opera, February–March this opera poses grave problems due to its length, sub- 2013; Daniele Gatti, conductor; François Girard, ject matter, and compositional style. The first act alone, director; Jonas Kaufmann, Parsifal; René Pape, like the Prologue and Act 1 of Götterdämmerung and Gurnemanz; Katarina Dalayman, Kundry; Peter the final act of Meistersinger, encompasses shorter works Mattei, Amfortas; Evgeny Nikitin, Klingsor such as La bohème, Tosca, Otello, Salome, and Elektra and The well-oiled Metropolitan Opera publicity machine almost dwarfs much of the standard repertoire (2.5 hours raised extremely high expectations since its announce- seems to be the average length of other operas). Parsifal’s ment of the current season almost a year ago. Parsifal religious theme also poses problems, more for those who had not enjoyed a new production at the Met since the do not “believe” or agree. The almost total lack of clearly Schenk/Schneider-Siemssen staging was revealed in definable, hummable, and whistleable big tunes and great 1991. The previous Nathaniel Merrill/Robert O’Hearn moments alienates the average listener. (With very few production came from 1974. As with most Met produc- tions, longevity and usefulness are pretty much built in. (Sadly, the Met has not done terribly well with Il trovatore and Lucia di Lammermoor, among others, but I suspect that nobody reading this review cares terri- bly much.) The promised cast was, on paper, virtually impossible to improve on. The staging Konzept was not too specific (was there an ulterior motive?), and only those who had seen this production’s previous incar- nation in Lyon really knew what it would be like. In comparison with the pre-Lepage Ring staging, there was far less gnashing of teeth when the Schenk production’s departure was announced. Yet another fairly literal and old-fashioned show has been consigned to history and has been quite successfully replaced by a wonderful Jonas Kaufmann as Parsifal with the Flower Maidens in and amazing new production, which, to this reviewer’s Act 2 eyes, ears, and great delight, promises to be the stan- Photo: Ken Howard/Met Opera dard of reference, and for many reasons. One can only hope that the seven performances this season were not a flash in the pan and that there will be a revival with this exceptions, that statement can apply to most operatic extraordinary cast. Having heard the first three perfor- compositions since the death of Puccini, but that is a mances on SiriusXM satellite radio and seen the fourth fertile topic for discussion for another time and place.) performance in-house, as well as the HD broadcast and Still, Parsifal endures and will continue to work its magic the HD encore, I can definitively say that this was one on listeners new and old. of those rare events where one simply gives thanks for The reason I mention these obstacles to the enjoyment being alive. of the work is that François Girard, the stage director, For Wagnerians, as well as composers and conductors, has so successfully solved virtually all of them. Of course, this score represents the sum and summit of this com- no stage director can solve the problem of the length of poser’s art. One can never have too much of this magical the work. It is what it is. By now, most audiences know music, which has beguiled receptive audiences for 130 what to expect and know that a proper appreciation of years. Parsifal, more than any other Wagner opera, has Wagner’s swan song is aided by careful preparation on spawned numerous artistic and compositional responses. the day of the performance. It does no good to arrive at The one that comes immediately to mind is not even a the opera house (or HD broadcast) immediately after a – 2 – meal of any size, five or ten minutes before the curtain. to others. There is no circular Communion table, and Neither should one fast the whole day. One should also hardly anything liturgical. Simple stylized gestures not run around New York City (or elsewhere) becom- accompany the Communion ritual. Parsifal does not ing fatigued. One must do everything possible to stay stand idly by for half an hour and observe (like the audi- awake and alert so as to absorb every note of the music ence); instead he wanders among the assembled knights and every second of this stage production. Every note and, standing two feet away from Amfortas at one point, and every image is so perfect and so stunningly well is clearly impressed by the horrific pain the Grail ruler thought out, played, acted, and sung that nothing should suffers. Never before have I seen and heard an Amfortas be missed. One can only hope that the Met, in its great in such pain and vocal agony. wisdom, will recognize the commercial prospects built At the end of this first Grail ceremony all exit slowly, into the HD telecast and release it as a DVD and/or make the L-shaped stream widens significantly and turns red. it available on demand. Girard departs from Wagner’s stage The principal characteristic of directions and has Gurnemanz exit Girard’s novel concept is that the . Girard brings in disgust and leave Parsifal to hear opera is not about simply watch- the alto solo intone the prophecy, ing some strange ritual. Rather, it is refreshing new ideas “Durch Mitleid wißend.” about the audience and its hopes for to this familiar The domain of Klingsor is also a renewal. Taking his cue from Stefan simple set. Two dark walls face the Herheim’s Bayreuth production, Wagnerian take on the audience, and again there is a clear Girard opens each act with a large, separation at the back—symbolic reflective mirror-scrim in which one Arthurian legends and practical in that it allows for sees the orchestra pit, the conductor, entrances and exits. The Flower and the house itself. During the pre- Maidens remain onstage during lude, the chorus at first is all scram- the entire act and are carefully bled and in street clothes. Slowly they doff street clothes and beautifully choreographed. The stage floor is now a and reveal a new ritual outfit: gray slacks and white shirts pool of dark red stage blood (about 600 gallons of water, for men, dark cloaks for women. Men and women sepa- food-grade glycerin, and red food dye are pumped in rate into two groups, the women moving upstage right and heated during the intermission, recycled at the end and the men forming two circles, a larger one surround- of the act for the next performance). Just whose blood ing a smaller one, with a fairly large acting space inside this is remains a mystery.