Wagner, Parsifal : Bavarian State Opera, Adam Fischer (conductor) Munich, 29.07. 2006 (SM)

 

 

Director: Peter Konwitschny

Sets and costumes: Johannes Leiacker

Cast:

Parsifal: Christopher Ventris

Amfortas: Juha Uusitalo

Gurnemanz: Matti Salminen

Kundry: Violeta Urmana

Klingsor: Eglis Silins

Titurel: Clive Bayley

 

Peter Konwitschny's Parsifal, with which he made his breakthrough at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich back in 1995 and his first-ever stab at Wagner, is ageing extremely well. Boasting a star-studded cast, Konwitschny's reading of Wagner's final opera will probably prove to be one of the highlights of this year's Munich Opera Festival, whose programme already reads like a sort of top 20 of some of the house's best productions during Intendant Peter Jonas' 13-year term, coming to an end this month.

OK, the Anselm Kiefer look to Johannes Leiacker's brooding, austere sets is starting to feel just that tiny bit dated now. And it was to be a few years yet before Konwitschny was to come back with the stunning Götterdämmerung he put on in Stuttgart.

But compared with Christoph Schlingensief's infuriatingly willful, but ultimately forgettable production that is being revived for the third and penultimate time in Bayreuth this year, Konwitschny has much to tell us about Wagner's "pure fool". And coupled with some stunning images and his clear, serious direction, Konwitschny's reading is likely to stick in the mind much longer than Schlingensief's ever will.

Interestingly enough, the conductor for this single performance of Parsifal in Munich was Adam Fischer, who is replacing Pierre Boulez in Bayreuth's legendary pit this year. Fischer received lavish praise when he stepped in in at short notice to replace the late Giuseppe Sinopoli in Jürgen Flimm's 2000-2004 Ring in Bayreuth. So it'll be interesting to hear what Fischer makes of Schlingensief's anarchic Parsifal on the Green Hill. Judging by this Munich performance, however, Fischer is no match for Boulez.

 

Once the fabulous Bavarian State Opera orchestra finally got warmed up - there were some intonation problems in the first notes of the opening prelude - the luscious string section, creamy brass and reedy woodwinds were a wonder to hear. But Fischer's tempi were much heavier and broader - almost stodgy at times - than the fleet-footed, gossamer-like textures woven by octogenarian Boulez.

By contrast, barring any miracles, the singing in Munich is certain to beat that in the Bayreuth's Festspielhaus hands down. Violeta Urmana was a stunning Kundry, fearlessly and flawlessly nailing the vertiginous top notes with laser-point accuracy, while investing her lower register with warmth and beauty. Christopher Ventris was excellent as Parsifal, even if his autumnally-hued tenor seems to have widened out and gained more weight - much in proportion to his heavier build - than I remember when he sang Siegmund in Cologne a few years ago. (As a footnote: it was in the Cologne Ring that Ventris partnered Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, Bayreuth's current Isolde. What a small world the world of Wagner singing is!) But above all, it was Matti Salminen whose rich, sonorous Gurnemanz more or less stole the show, a paragon of profound musicality, clear diction and credible acting.

Why is it that singers of this calibre aren't singing in Bayreuth? Urmana hasn't been seen in the Festspielhaus since she sang Sieglinde in 2003. And this year's Parsifal in Bayreuth will be Alfons Eberz, who adheres to the school of thinking that Heldentenors must bark their way through their parts rather than sing them.

Eglis Silins was convincingly evil as Klingsor, whom Konwitschny turns into a Doppelgänger of Amfortas. And both Clive Bayley and Juha Uusitalo were good as Titurel and Amfortas, without being truly memorable.

Some of Konwitschny's ideas came across as gratuitously gimmicky: Kundry, in cowboy boots and stetson, arrives on stage on a crude, wooden horse. Parsifal swings on Tarzan-like on a grapevine. And the unveiling of the Grail in Act I is decked up in Lourdes-like kitsch, with Kundry as the blue and white Madonna complete with bleeding heart.

Nevertheless, the images are visually striking, and with their overwhelming mix of white, grey and black were bleakly, impressively reminiscent of Anselm Kiefer's huge landscape paintings. The Grail knights wear tattered greatcoats, evoking Germany at the end or immediately after World War II. A monolithic tree dominates the stage throughout the evening, dead and white in Act I, bedecked in yellow, green and orange leaves for Klingsor's magic garden in Act II and then draped in black for the Act III. And Klingsor is the mirror image of Amfortas, whose eternally seeping wound is to his genitalia, as if he too has tried to emasculate himself like Klingsor.

The setting seems to be a world after some sort of nuclear holocaust, with the Grail knights the exhausted survivors scrabbling to find some meaning to hang on to.Parsifal and Kundry are clearly attracted to each other right from the very beginning, with Parsifal cutting out a red heart from a piece of paper and giving it to Kundry. Kundry does not collapse and die at the end, but is seemingly crushed to death by the knights who ominously encircle her. She is left lying on the ground and, in a closing image that just scrapes past being kitsch, a sheet of paper on which is pencilled a white dove of peace descends on her body as the curtain falls.

 

Eleven years on, Konwitschny's Parsifal is looking as good as ever and will hopefully be around for a few more years to come, as  a reminder that, unlike the Schlingensiefs of this world, there are still theatre directors around who take their trade seriously and who really know their Wagner inside out.

 

 

Simon Morgan

 

Photographs © Wilfried Hoesl