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The Huffington Post, February 20, 2013 |
Wilborn Hampton |
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Wagner: Parsifal, Metropolitan Opera, 15. Februar 2013 |
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A Modern New 'Parsifal' for the 21st Century
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Few if any operas have aroused such fierce philosophical and religious
debate as Parsifal, Wagner's last great work for the stage, and a new
Metropolitan Opera staging with a stellar cast attempts to bring all its
mysticism into some sort of coherent meaning for a modern audience.
Wagnerians around the world can decide for themselves to what extent the
Canadian director Francois Girard succeeds in his new production on March 2
when the Met offers Parsifal as part of its Live in HD series via a
simulcast to some 1,900 theaters in 64 countries.
Vocally,
the Met could not have assembled a better cast. The German tenor Jonas
Kaufmann delivers a brilliant performance as Parsifal, subtly transforming
the "pure fool" who wanders into the forest of Knights of the Holy Grail
into their unlikely savior. Rene Pape, who is emerging as the
reigning bass at the Met, sings the role of Gurnemanz with all the authority
of an Old Testament prophet, and the Swedish soprano Katarina Dalayman
displays remarkable vocal range as Kundry, the tortured double-agent of a
temptress.
Peter Mattei as Amfortas and Evgeny Nikitin as Klingsor
round out the excellent line-up of principals, and Daniele Gatti conducts
the always splendid Met orchestra with a sense of both the passion and
solemnity of Wagner's sublime score.
From its first performance, to
reopen the Bayreuth Festival Theater in 1882, Parsifal has been surrounded
by controversy. Wagner himself called it a "stage consecrating festival
play" rather than an "opera," and for more than two decades the festival was
the only place it was performed. (It was the Metropolitan Opera who first
staged in outside Bayreuth, on Christmas Eve, 1903.)
At heart,
Parsifal is a celebration of the perennial renewal of hope that spring
brings, a passage observed both in pagan rites and by most of the world's
religions, and it is no accident that the opera is most often performed
around the Easter season.
The story, based on a long Medieval
romantic poem, is basically a fable about redemption through compassion and
renunciation. A young naïf goes on a quest, and by rejecting the sexual
advances of a temptress experiences an epiphany that leads to salvation. But
as with so many fables, especially those steeped in religion, the devil is
in the details.
The plot centers around an order of knights charged
with protecting the Holy Grail and the spear thrust into Jesus' side during
the Crucifixion. Years earlier, however, the order's leader, Amfortas, was
seduced by Kundry and lost the spear to Klingsor, a Mephistophelean
character bent on destroying the knights. In the fray, Amfortas was run
through by the spear and now suffers from an incurable wound. Enter
Parsifal.
Observing the knights' ritual with the Grail, Parsifal is
unmoved, yet he sets out to retrieve the spear. Arriving in Klingsor's evil
kingdom, he is tempted first by a bevy of maidens, then Kundry herself. But
when she kisses him, Parsifal feels a sudden empathy with Amfortas's
suffering and rejects her advances. He grabs the lost spear and escapes.
Girard's concept for the new Met production begins to take shape even
before a word is sung. During Wagner's magnificent Prelude, beautifully
played by the Met orchestra under Gatti's baton, the knights gradually
appear behind a scrim, stoically staring straight ahead, like occupants of
the Grovers Corner graveyard in Our Town. Each takes off his shoes, socks,
and coat, revealing identical white shirts. First they kneel, than rise,
take chairs and form a circle. Raising their hands in some symbolic salute,
they begin to pray. It is an eerie evocation of a sort of modern-day cult.
In a program interview, Girard says he sought to "rebalance" the
depiction of Parsifal as a purely Christian story. "It also has a very
distinct Buddhist and ... nihilist foundation," the last a reading of the
libretto that Nietzsche, once an admirer of Wagner but later an implacable
foe, might find laughable.
The staging by Girard and his tech team is
nonetheless effective. The knights' forest has been rendered as a bleak,
parched landscape that has languished from the loss of the spear. Klingsor's
pleasure palace is a cavern that runs red with blood. And throughout, the
sky is filled with turbulent storm clouds, alternating with patches of
sunlight, despair alternating with hope, much like life itself.
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