Parsifal - Opera North

[gradus]

The best Parsifal staging I've seen was at Bayreuth in 1978. A more or less conventional attempt to realise Wagner's wishes with a brilliantly done Act 1 Transformation, really quite something. Didn't the Solti Bayreuth productions (Peter Hall?) get heavily criticised for trying to be true to Wagner's wishes.

[Mandryka]

The best Parsifal staging I've seen was at Bayreuth in 1978. A more or less conventional attempt to realise Wagner's wishes with a brilliantly done Act 1 Transformation, really quite something. Didn't the Solti Bayreuth productions (Peter Hall?) get heavily criticised for trying to be true to Wagner's wishes.

Well Wagner’s wishes were that Kundry be excluded from the shrine at the end. Redemption is for the lads.

[DracoM]

Serious Q: how much real and/or detailed control over PRODUCTION values does the conductor of an opera have these days?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Serious Q: how much real and/or detailed control over PRODUCTION values does the conductor of an opera have these days?

If you mean the staging , lighting and direction. the answer is “it all depends”. At the Salzburg Festival Karajan had more or less total control because he was to all intents and purposes the director. These days I reckon it’s pretty much up to the individual. I get the impression that some musical directors like Antonio Pappano are prepared to put up with productions with which they are out of sympathy - others adopt the “never again “ approach. In other words if they have a bad experience they just doesn’t work with the director again. It all depends on how powerful you are . I reckon Levine at the Met had pretty much total veto on those whose work he didn’t like. A guest conductor at the ROH a would have very little influence indeed. From my (very limited) experience of working in the drama world I think it’s fair to say that the better directors welcome sensible feedback and suggestions from actors so I see no reason why they should reject the same from conductors . The problems arise when the entire concept is flawed - I suspect the conductors then bury their heads in the score and just look at the players (and singers when they have to)

[LHC]

If you mean the staging , lighting and direction. the answer is “it all depends”. At the Salzburg Festival Karajan had more or less total control because he was to all intents and purposes the director. These days I reckon it’s pretty much up to the individual. I get the impression that some musical directors like Antonio Pappano are prepared to put up with productions with which they are out of sympathy - others adopt the “never again “ approach. In other words if they have a bad experience they just doesn’t work with the director again. It all depends on how powerful you are . I reckon Levine at the Met had pretty much total veto on those whose work he didn’t like. A guest conductor at the ROH a would have very little influence indeed. From my (very limited) experience of working in the drama world I think it’s fair to say that the better directors welcome sensible feedback and suggestions from actors so I see no reason why they should reject the same from conductors . The problems arise when the entire concept is flawed - I suspect the conductors then bury their heads in the score and just look at the players (and singers when they have to)

If it’s a revival of an existing production, the conductor has zero input; they have to work with what has already been produced, and the revival director (if he or she is not the original director) will follow the production book.

Even if it’s a new production, the director and designer will have been working on the production for months or in some cases years, and will have already discussed the production extensively with the opera house’s management. Where the conductor is also the music director of the house (as in Pappano’s case), they will have been included in the discussions and may have some influence, but in most cases this will probably be minimal.

Bernard Haitink famously hated several Royal Opera House productions put on for him when he was music director (most notably Richard Jones’ Ring cycle) and simply averted his gaze most of the time. Marek Janowski agreed to conduct the second run of the Castorf Ring at Bayreuth because it was his only chance to conduct the Ring there. He normally refuses to conduct modern productions, and would have hated Castorf’s production.

However, some conductors still want to have a say. When JEG conducted a La Finta Giardinera at the Opera House, he managed to fall out with the director Christof Loy at the first rehearsal to such an extent that Loy refused to work with him, and it was left to Loy’s assistants to bring the production to the stage. Interestingly, their argument wasn’t about the production, but rather about the musical edition to be used, and which arias would and wouldn’t be included in the production.

As you have noted, Levine had total control at the Met, and although there were some fine modern productions in his early years at the Met, he became increasingly conservative in his tastes, and favored very traditional (and often rather dull) productions. Another factor at the Met was that, without a subsidy, it couldn’t afford to upset the predominantly conservative tastes of its audience. Several productions there were also funded by a legacy from Sybil B Harrington, which included a condition that her money could only be used to fund traditional productions of the sort put on by her favourite director, Franco Zeffirelli.

[CallMePaul]

Hopefully yes, probably to a midweek performance in Leeds. Pity that its semi-staged rather than fully staged, though, even though semi-staging worked OK for Turandot.

Tickets duly booked for 7 June performance (balcony BB27-8).

[Prommer]

Anyone been yet?

[jonfan]

I was there last night, along with Radio 3 who recorded the performance. Thrilling singing from all the principal characters with no weak link. The chorus were tremendous and very much in and among the audience a lot of the time and with the orchestra being on stage the action seemed very near and in front of the proscenium arch. Sensuous and powerful playing by turns from the orchestra. Highly recommended.

[CallMePaul]

Tickets duly booked for 7 June performance (balcony BB27-8).

We got upgrades to good stalls seats as ON wanted to close the balcony. We enjoyed the singing but my partner thought the production quirky. In general I would agree with Jonfan's assessment. However, ON needs to address issues such as interval provision - we thought the food offer expensive for what was availabale so brought our own. However, there was no dedicated eating area and we had to eat outside the auditorium standing.

[jonfan]

There were some quirky bits in the production, in particular a baby produced at the end instead of a dove indicating Redemption.
I thought the interval catering superb and good value for money with orders placed on socially distanced tables ready for you in the Grand’s new restaurant called Kino, opening to the public in July. There are ample toilet facilities there, in contrast to the totally inadequate arrangements in the old theatre which probably haven’t been updated properly since Victorian times.

[french frank]

For a full and enthusiastic review - but excluding the rubber baby doll (said reviewer also went to a later performance and said it was 'Betterer and betterer'). Re catering, he points out that ON only hire the hall; the theatre is responsible for catering and loos):

"Parsifal was marvellous - by some considerable distance the best thing that ON has done (that I've seen) since The Ring back in 2016, and arguably even superior to that, in that here we had a staging with costumes and props (although this aspect won't be seen by audiences in London, Nottingham and Manchester). All the cast were splendid, with the exception of Amfortas (a wide, Tarzan-like vibrato with very peccable intonation - as if to make up for this, he was the best actor on stage) and one of the Flower Maidens, who was both loud and sharp. Gurnemanz was particularly good, Kundry marvellous (especially in Act Two - nailing that leap from top B down to bottom D, but beautifully lyrical, too), as was Klingsor. Toby Spence was a little light-voiced and very occasionally overwhelmed by the orchestra - but with compensating lyricism, and splendid vocal and physical acting: there was real development in the character, and his compassion for Amfortas was palpable. Titurel was good - I missed the stentorian sonorities of studio-enhanced recordings, but nothing seriously "wrong" - as were 5/6s of the Flower Maidens. Orchestra and conducting magnificent.

The visual production was mostly powerful and seriously thought-through, too. Usually, ON's Wagner productions are given in the bigger performing space of Leeds Town Hall, but that's currently closed for refurbishment so the director had to rethink his ideas to suit the performing space of the Grand Theatre - with the huge orchestra taking up most of the stage. It worked extremely well - the orchestra pit used for much of the action, as well as the very front of the stage (including, when Amfortas begs the Knights to end his life, the conductor's podium) and the area around the back of the orchestra. I also discovered why I couldn't have my favourite seat in the Slips - the women of the Chorus were using both sides of the rear Balcony for their scenes. This resulted in a fully "surround sound" experience for the audience - and hearing the top Ab (held without waver or break for six very long bars) coming from behind me at the very end is a memory I shall treasure. Klingsor had no Tower to fall and shatter at the end of Act Two, so the loss of his magic was portrayed by the Flower Maidens turning on him and suffocating him as they had tried to do with Parsifal earlier; earlier they had beguiled Parsifal with the mirrors in their powder compacts (with which "the minxes had made themselves up" in the libretto), lights flickering from left to right of the stage. Sometimes the director didn't have the courage to let the singers stay still, and there was quite a bit of "let's move to the left of the stage, then to the right, then back to the middle" for no discernable reason - but his only serious miscalculation came at the very end, after Parsifal announced "Behold! The Grail!" .... which turned out to be Kundry holding up a very rubbery baby doll, which she held up for the whole Coda of the opera - which is a very long time, and KK looked very embarrassed, and not sure what to do. For the last five minutes of the opera, she held the baby to the left, then to the right, then cradled it against her shoulder, then held it aloft above her (it was very, very rubbery). A moment of excruciating bathos at the very worst possible moment.

"Here Time becomes Space", Gurnemanz famously tells Parsifal in Act One - well, not when you're sitting for 5.5 hours in the Balcony seats of the Grand Theatre it doesn't! ... Even so, neither the limited leg room nor the rubber baby is putting me off going to a second performance next Tuesday (not a sudden decision: last year I bought two tickets, reckoning that another Parsifal production isn't going to be coming along anytime soon). This is the one that's being recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 "at a future date" - totally recommended, though I may well need to see a physiotherapist for a few months afterwards. One has to suffer for one's Art."

[jonfan]

Thank you for your detailed review ff, agreed with all your points. Pay a bit more and you can have the relative comfort of the front of Dress Circle. At £40, pensioner’s rate, incredible value for a 5 hour opera with world class performers.
The bit about the baby I don’t really get as each act was preceded by some spoken German texts shone on the curtain and then gradually changed into English. In the background was soft crying of a baby. I can only think it’s concerning the innocent simplicity of Parsifal mirrored in the new beginnings of birth?

[Pulcinella]

Here's a link to the Guardian review (Andrew Clements, 2 June 2022):

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jun/02/opera-north-parsifal-review-wagner-richard-farnes-sherratt-spence-karneus

And here's one to the Times review (Geoff Brown, 3 June 2022):

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parsifal-review-opera-norths-wonderful-orchestra-take-centre-stage-in-wagners-epic-ghc720b88?shareToken=c207c017beb15e8d981c41a07aa58bc8

[french frank]

Thank you for your detailed review ff, agreed with all your points.

Um, not actually my review, jonfan, but one who lives a bit farther north than me. He writes to say I must have copied his review wrongly as 'Kundry's laughter is a leap from top B (natural) to Db (written C#), nearly two octaves below'. I think I've got that right now. Any corrections to the amanuensis (me) … He's retired to bed with the vapours

[jonfan]

Um, not actually my review, jonfan, but one who lives a bit farther north than me. He writes to say I must have copied his review wrongly as 'Kundry's laughter is a leap from top B (natural) to Db (written C#), nearly two octaves below'. I think I've got that right now. Any corrections to the amanuensis (me) … He's retired to bed with the vapours

Apologies ff, I didn't notice the apostrophes.