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The Telegraph, 30 JUNE 2018 |
by Rupert Christiansen |
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Wagner: Parsifal, Bayerische Staatsoper, 28. Juni 2018 |
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Ignore the boos – this Parsifal is the opera experience of a lifetime *****
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With other major summer festivals such as Salzburg and Bayreuth offering
relatively dull programmes this summer, opera buffs’ attention has turned to
Munich and its annual June jamboree at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The
dazzling highlight of its current offering is an all-star new production of
Wagner’s Parsifal, designed by the legendary German artist Georg Baselitz
and conducted by Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle’s successor at the Berlin
Phiharmonic.
Happily, in an era of last-minute cancellations,
everyone turned up; and miraculously, the result exceeded all expectations.
Most conductors of this opera explore the contrast between a diaphanous
watery luminosity and a grim fatalistic militarism; Petrenko’s approach is
much warmer and gentler than that, a reminder that at this opera’s heart is
a plea for pity, Mitleid, an understanding of the pain of others. Although
it explores some dark human places and maintains keen dramatic tension, this
isn’t a Parsifal that shouts Nazism or grandstands any rhetorical message:
even in its more agitated moments, it has a constant lyrical fluency,
exquisitely rendered by the superb orchestra.
And what wonderful
performances Petrenko’s nurturing interpretation sustains. Jonas Kaufmann is
in magnificent voice as the hero – how well this music suits his baritonal
timbre – singing with flawless security and acting with total commitment.
Likewise Nina Stemme, who as Kundry looks and sounds the million dollars she
has just won as recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Prize: I have never heard
the second act’s fearsome climax nailed more accurately or thrillingly.
Rene Pape makes a serenely mellifluous Gurnemanz, radiating quiet wisdom
and spiritual authority; Christian Gerhaher infuses Amfortas’ bitterly
remorseful anguish with his matchless sensitivity to colour and text; and
Wolfgang Koch is all malice and venom as the twisted Klingsor. The chorus of
Flower Maidens and Knights of the Grail simply could not bettered.
Baselitz’s production – intelligently and clearly staged by Pierre Audi, but
very much shaped by the sets and costumes – will divide opinion. It offers a
bleak and deathly vision of a withered and scorched world, in which
Titurel’s holy order seems not so much a cult of idealistic votaries as a
band of outlawed survivors. The naked fat suits worn by the Knights and
Flower Maidens are both ridiculous and repulsive, suggestive of the hopeless
vulnerability of our humanity, while the final apocalyptic starburst of
white light seems more like a destruction than a redemption: neither image
resonates with the Mitleid that courses through the music. Munich’s audience
booed Baselitz at the curtain calls, but the power of his negative
imagination is undeniable.
What an overwhelming evening. Five stars?
I could double that, for this was one of the great operatic experiences of
my lifetime.
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