World Famous Comics: Wagner - Parsifal / Levine, Weikl, Mazura, Metropolitan Opera
Wagner - Parsifal / Levine, Weikl, Mazura, Metropolitan Opera
Starring: Bernd Weikl, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Kurt Moll, Franz Mazura, Siegfried Jerusalem Directed By: Brian Large Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC Label: Deutsche Grammophon Number of Items: 2 Region Code: 1 Release Date: October 29, 2002 Running Time: 264 minutes Theatrical Release Date: April 07, 1993
bad luck Aproppriated scenarios,excelent singers,a good music making by Levine. However,as some people say that Haydn's bad luck was to be Mozart's contemporary,we could say ,for many conductors in some works,it is not easy to be contemporary of Karajan,forgive me those who hate the idiosyncrasy and vanity of the Austrian conductor.His recording of Parsifal,despite uneven P Hoffmann,has an orchestral texture reaching a matchless supernatural rapture,a difficult concentration in adagios and a heavenly athmosphere in te "eucharistic"moments,so that every other version seem to lack some sublimity,although they would be excellent once we did not know Karajan recording. Flavio J.Morsch , Brazil
Still the ideal interpretation I find that this production is the only one that correctly produces Wagner's intentions as he wanted them.
Traditional scenery...lush and noble staging. The characters act profoundly and there is a great deal of drama and magic all throughout!
My favorite Parsifal on DVD!
Niggling criticism, enormous gratitude for this DVD. As I watched Parsifal I felt grateful to belong to a society which can produce such a performance.
There will always be differences of opinion regarding musical interpretation, stage production, selection of cast, etc., but the number of dedicated (yes, it's still a good word) people involved and the enormous amount of time and resources is stunning to contemplate.
I enjoyed my first viewing/listening and expect to treasure this DVD for a long time. I am quite familiar with the opera, having played it many times (violinist), but seeing it from out front is a completely new experience. Generally it is understood that Wagner was a bit long-winded, and some more judicious cuts could improve the performance. I always thought it was kind of Wagner to write the string parts in the manner he wrote them in the Flower Girl Scene. There are just enough rests that the first violins can quickly turn their heads a see what is happening on stage, and our first violin section did just that in dress rehearsals (we were allowed). The sight was always rewarding, but it is even more so from out front!
Every person who doesn't own this DVD should buy it immediately and watch it/listen to it. It will improve your attitude, I promise.
Should Wagner Be Staged? Right from the first shimmering soulful series of chords that launches the overture, the music of Parsifal is sublime, otherworldly, heroic yet sensitive to the cost of heroism. The Met orchestra plays it with consummate skill, and Levine's conducting convinces this listener of the depth in the music that another conductor might turn into bombast. The cast of singers are certainly also consummate artists, though at times the demands of such a long score come close to overmatching their physical resources. But the staging can best be described as "plodding." Seriously, many of the characters spend minutes at a stretch just plodding from one X on the stage to another. And they do it so slowly! It doesn't help that most of them, the principals and the minor roles too, depend entirely on the upholstery of their costumes to lend them any stage presence at all, apart from Wagnerian bulkiness. The whole production has all the romantic mystery of a Midwestern family reunion without the potato salad. A new generation of Wagnerian singers, and especially of stage directors, is urgently needed to pass the torch of Wagner's operas to younger audiences. I don't think the new direction will be more minimalism; that's been tried, that may have life in it for Handel and Gluck but it has already flopped with Wagner. Notice how few new productions of Wagner are appearing on DVD, and how many of those that have been released are 20 or more years old? I don't know what the next wave of Wagner should be like, but for the present I find it easier to enjoy the music on CD than on the stage.
If you spurn my advice, however, and buy this DVD, go directly to the second disk. It appears, as Milton thought, that the evil ones are the most attractive. Franz Mazurka gives a powerful performance as the wicked wizard Klingsor. Waltraud Meier is a five-star temptress, both vocally and dramatically, as Kundry. Poor Siegried Jerusalem is not only too old to be plausible as Parsifal, visually or vocally, but also he is no more an actor than George W is a compassionate conservative.
Perhaps the key to staging Wagner is ruthless editing.
A tremendous experience Levine's 1993 Met performance and Horst Stein's 1981 audience-free Bayreuth production are the only traditional "Parsifals" on DVD, so a comparison seems in order. The Bayreuth "Parsifal" has very fine singing but is marred by less than involved acting and occasional weak production touches by Wolfgang Wagner. The singing at the Met is just as good, and Otto Schenk's production is far better. The Met scores in terms of scenery, staging and acting. There is a magic in New York that is not there in Bayreuth, which has a more plain, homespun quality, attractive in its own way (similar in that regard to Wolfgang Wagner's "Bayreuth "Meistersinger.").
Schenk's handling of characters is just more involving and inviting. Here are seemingly real people facing important issues. Wolfgang Wagner's sense of stage acting comes basically from the stand and deliver school, lacking much compelling interaction between characters to bring the drama to life. The drama here is not exactly gripping; static is more like it.
On its own, the Bayreuth forest that opens acts 1 and 3 is fine, but next to the Met's grand and realistic outdoors, feels a bit cramped and artificial after a while. Bayreuth's second scene of both acts (the hall of the castle of the grail), a la his brother Wieland's 1951-75 production, is abstract yet compelling, too, in its own way. But the Met has a more spiritual setting and a more deeply affecting result.
Act 2 starts out in Bayreuth with Klingsor's castle looking like a cheap science fiction B-movie scene with cheesy-looking smoke, abstract curved pillars on the side and Klingsor dominating from above like a tacky evil superhero. Unconvincing. Laughable even. Sad when Leif Roar is a most compelling Klingsor, full of menace and in vibrant voice. The Met's scenery and staging are more believable, richer in imagery and impression, but Franz Mazura as good as he is, can't compare vocally to Roar, and looks a bit old.
Vocally, both casts are very fine. Each Gurnemanze, the vocal center of the opera, offers rich vocal portrayals, although Wolfgang Wagner has Hans Sotin act rather too condescendingly toward Parsifal in Act 1, losing some of our sympathy. The Met's Kurt Moll is rather more the wise-old grandfatherly type in the spirit of the well-meaning Gurnemanz.
Siegfried Jerusalem is both Parsifals, and his extra 12 years of stage experience shows more strongly at the Met. The voice may be slightly fresher at Bayreuth and his youthful looks a plus, but his Met Parsifal is deeper, more natural and more eloquent.
Bernd Weikl also graces both productions as an outstanding Amfortas. His Wieland Wagner-enforced less-is-more movement at Bayreuth is not a hindrance in this spiritually and physically wracked character, and in some ways is a plus.
Waltraud Meier's Kundry is one of the Met's highlights. She is more fetching and physically expressive than Bayreuth's Eva Randova, well as she sings. Meier brings a sensuality and stronger vocalizing to Kundry that is most compelling.
The conductor comparison surprised me, as I have not been a fan of Levine's Wagner, finding his "Ring" protracted and heavy handed. But "Parsifal" is a different animal in the Wagner canon; my two favorite audio recordings both come from that master of grand, Knappertsbusch (Bayreuth, 1951 and 1962). Levine, while not quite on his level, brings off a spirituality and conversely, more animation when called for, that the straightforward Stein, who is a good but not overly compelling (similar to what I felt about his Bayreuth DVD "Meistersinger").
Levine may unduly stretch tempos now and then, but to my taste, his is a more involved and felt journey than Stein's. Stein offers a good, solid reading which has the benefit of flow but misses some of Levine's passion and depth.
The drama is more real, believable and interactive in New York than Bayreuth. The sets and staging are more natural and compelling, too. An outstanding release.
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