https://youtu.be/D7asZ8aEWlU Not a trailer a such but a news item with production glimpses and interviews.
This is going to be a long review and all the comments were made as I was watching – ‘live responding’ I think is the term.
Musically it was superb – invidious to pick out individuals but everyone stood out. Production-wise, well rather a different story. The biggest problem (and it was there from the very start as my remarks will indicate) was the disconnect between the words and actions sung and what we actually saw on the stage. The basic conceit was to have it set in a Russian prison, obviously called Montsalvat. The director had to do his job remotely as he is under house arrest in Russia and some reviewers said that for that reason it seemed to be more personal therapy for him but that is a silly and ignorant remark.
So, to Act 1. A solidly metal set with cells on the sides and a low strutted metal roof giving an effectively claustrophobic feel. At the top and back of the stage were three screens and what appeared on these, often duplicated, was of importance, particularly in the first act, but less so in the subsequent ones.
However, the key conceit was to have two Parsifals – the older who, it seems who is reliving all his experiences (this was the Kauffmann role) and a younger, feral,silent one who was observed by the older (and only once did the two interact). This younger, (played by the remarkably attractive young actor!) was a thuggish criminal on the make – the ‘swan’ he killed (shown on the screens) was an albino prisoner with enormous wings tattooed on his back. This actually worked well and I did not find any awkward disconnect by having the two characters on the stage simultaneously.
In this setting Gurnemanz was the ‘king pin’ in the prison, being responsible for the tattoos which identified the prisoners and also had clear visual significance, with crosses, spears and wings being prominent. This was also effective in connecting with the idea of the grail knights being the members of an order to which one had to be admitted and who had rituals and processes that were closed and baffling to outsiders. However, while these elements clearly linked to the original story it was difficult to see how they logically related to the actions and ideas about which the characters sung. Kundry was a photo journalist doing a report for her magazine, one that in Act 2 we saw as a rather sleazy gay men’s pin-up magazine. And Amfortas was a self-harming prisoner although, certainly on Act 1, it was difficult to see how and why he was held in such reverence by the other prisoners – another example of the disconnect between the story as communicated through the words pf the opera and that communicated by the stage picture.
The ritualistic parallels between prison and the knights of the grail did work well together in the latter part of the first act where the dining hall meal made an effective parallel – at least visually. Again there was a pretty massive disconnect between the words and what we saw on the stage. Likewise, using the screens to show the prisoners exercising in the yard was effective, as was their use for Parsifal when he was arriving at and leaving the prison as well as showing the parts of his life story that he narrates.
A number of the aspects of the story did work well in this updating/re-setting, particularly the revelations about Parsifal’s early life and traumas which were taken from his file. Likewise, having Titurel only as a voice with the possibility that it is a delusion of Amfortas was another smartly intelligent updating choice that made sense within this re-telling. At the end of the act, with the corrupt guards opening prisoners’ packages, their taking out of religious artefacts – a chalice, a prayer rug and a menorah made the rather heavy-handed suggestion that these prisoners were all there for their beliefs – although it seemed that they had all come together with a new set of beliefs when in the prison. Parsifal going to help Amfortas at the end of the act was a nice suggestion that he is beginning to improve and so gaining (self) knowledge although this was also at the same time as he viciously attacked another prisoner so he clearly still had some way to go. At the very end of the act he, it seems, is released from the prison and is on his way to becoming a pin-up model for the magazine for which Kundry works. But again, it was unclear if he has been released or was just going to be allowed out for that purpose. And at the very end of the act having Kundry sing the ‘heavenly voice’ was a very smart and dramatically an apposite idea as she did see something in Parsifal that others, perhaps including he himself, had not seen.
In Act 2 Klingsor’s realm is the pin-up magazine Schloss and the office where the action takes place maintained the black and white colour palette of the first Act. Here again, particularly at the start with the summoning of Kundry and the actual text of Wagner, there was, again, a pretty massive disconnect between the two – although what we saw visually was effective and, on its own terms alone, did work. Kundy’s shriek as she is ‘waked’ (from what in the office??) was amusingly interpreted as her spilling coffee on her computer and Klingsor; it sounds ridiculous but at the time, on the stage, it worked.
The seduction of the pin-up Parsifal (bearing a close resemblance to Robert Mapplethorpe) worked well, as the maidens were the team primping and preparing Parsifal for a photo shoot. The reactions of the older Parsifal were amusing here as he was obviously embarrassed by what and who he was at that time. But I could not work out the logic of the older Parsifal momentarily taking the younger’s place towards the end of the flower maidens scene. Were his memories overwhelming him at this point or was it a vain attempt to change the past? Three mothers for Parsifal were illogical and incoherent; why?
The climax of the act with the impossible convincingly realistic staging demands sort of worked. Parsifal it seemed defeated Kundry (and Klingsor) simply by not being afraid of them and standing up to and rejecting them. That Kundry killed Klingsor was convincing and made a lot of sense, both dramatically and emotionally in this particular interpretation.
In the final act we are in a different part of the prison – a rec room with only a few female prisoners there, at least in the first part of the act. With the characteristically excellent chiaroscuro lighting Again, all the talk of the ‘holy day’ etc. etc. really made no visually dramatic sense. Likewise, all the talk of the spear (a pipe held by Parsifal, added to the absurdity of the dramatic situation. As the climax approached, I did wonder if Parsifal would be the savior of Amfortas by actually killing him (which would make some dramatic sense – Parsifal IS the spear) as he had already started to become an icon by having the women put down candles and flowers around him. The brief return of the young Parsifal was emotionally powerful but dramatically baffling – was the older imagining what could have been again?
But Parsifal’s salvational ability was powerfully shown at the end as everyone slowly left the prison to freedom – and on the screens, the ‘swan’ (tattooed albino male) also came back to life – a nicely powerful symbolic gesture of how Parsifal has now been fully redeemed from what he was at the start. Kundry, intriguingly and quite rightly, did not die but left with the other prisoners – a good idea and I could see this working in other interpretations. And the final image of the ‘old’ Parsifal, alone in the prison was a powerful one.
So, very impressive and gripping, in spite of my strictures about the many dramatic inconsistencies between the words and the actions. But the performance and the commitment of the performers, was so great that while it niggled at times, I did not feel that it ruined the entire very powerful experience of this strange and remarkable work.
Parsifal – Jonas Kaufmann
Gurnemanz – Georg Zeppenfeld
Amfortas – Ludovic Tézier
Kundry – Elīna Garanča
Klingsor – Wolfgang Koch
Titurel – Stefan Cerny
First Squire – Patricia Nolz
Second Squire – Stephanie Maitland
Third Squire – Daniel Jenz
Fourth Squire – Angelo Pollak
First Grail Knight – Carlos Osuna
Second Knight of the Grail – Erik Van Heyningen
The then Parsifal – Nikolay Sidorenko
Conductor: Phillipe Jordan