Kaufmann in Parsifal, live from the Met 2.3.13

[Flosshilde]

Thanks - I'll enjoy the opera and the fish 'n' chips (from Jack McPhee, 'fresh from the sea' )

[gurnemanz]

Off to Cineworld, Swindon and building up to it this evening by watching Dusty Springfield on BBC4. Time, we hope, afterwards, for a well-earned pint - "Labung" as the "rüstig greisenhaft*" Gurnemanz puts it. We shall probably head for our local, The Five Bells, with Grail bells ringing in our ears.

*elderly but vigorous!

[Nick Armstrong]

Kaufmann in Parsifal, live from the Met 2.3.13

The excitement about Jonas Kaufmann's Wagner would seem an added reason to flag this evening's live relay from the Met with JK singing Parsifal. Daniele Gatti on the podium...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0ynw

[Karafan]

The excitement about Jonas Kaufmann's Wagner would seem an added reason to flag this evening's live relay from the Met with JK singing Parsifal. Daniele Gatti on the podium...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0ynw

Too true. Thanks Cali, I shall be tuning in the cat's whisker...

[Black Swan]

The excitement about Jonas Kaufmann's Wagner would seem an added reason to flag this evening's live relay from the Met with JK singing Parsifal. Daniele Gatti on the podium...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0ynw

I could be accused of biting into the hype, but I am going to the Theatre tonight to see it streamed live.

[amateur51]

My local indy kinema is offering the live experience for £30 (tickets still available) but there will be no subtitles

So I'm off down to Sainsbury's for a bottle of graciano and a pork pie and some gherkins and other nibbling fodder, then it'll be full ahead both on steam radio with the full text on-screen ;ok:

I know how to live

[kernelbogey]

I could be accused of biting into the hype, but I am going to the Theatre tonight to see it streamed live.

Alas can't make it to the theatre or listen to the wireless for this tonight as I'm going to a friend's sixtieth birthday party. I may go to the repeat on Monday of today's live HD transmission at our local Picture House.

kb

[gurnemanz]

See other thread

[Nick Armstrong]

See other thread

Oh, sorry.... I looked, and "searched" for 'Parsifal' in any thread headings, before starting mine... Found nothing, to my surprise.

Thanks gurnemanz: I will combine them

[Flosshilde]

My local indy kinema is offering the live experience for £30 (tickets still available) but there will be no subtitles

Cineworld in Glasgow is charging £20, £15 concessions Don't know about the subtitles, But I would assume that they would be included? Perhaps I should take a libretto with me (except I doubt if I'd be able to read it in the gloom)

[amateur51]

Cineworld in Glasgow is charging £20, £15 concessions Don't know about the subtitles, But I would assume that they would be included? Perhaps I should take a libretto with me (except I doubt if I'd be able to read it in the gloom)

I'll be using this ...

http://www.rwagner.net/libretti/parsifal/e-pars-a1.html

Could you not borrow a Kindle or a tablet for the evening and download it Flossie with the promise of a fish supper hand-delivered when you return it?

[Anna]

Just looked, it's showing here now £15 a ticket, but no concessions, so those of you paying £30 - seems a bit of a rip-off don't it unless it includes interval nibbles and a glass of wine? Next one we have is Francesca da Rimini. Not that I've even been tempted to go to a Met streaming, but we also get NT streaming, which, from memory, costs £12

[Bert Coules]

It's the act two interval, and what a splendid production this is: intelligent, moving and often gripping, despite the sometimes incredibly slow pace of the work itself, with lovely and obviously deeply-felt interaction between the characters. Visually too it's striking without being in any way gimmicky: very impressive lighting and projection work in particular.

And after act one, there went the Met, crassly breaking the spell with an onstage interview with the Parsifal scant seconds after the curtain had fallen. Unbelievable.

I had a few very tiny quibbles, chiefly this: I don't think I've ever seen a production - and this one appears so far to be no exception - which makes a real effort to present the act one Kundry as markedly different from the figure she's
due to become in act two. Lank hair and a drabber costume just don't cut it: she should surely look barely human. The leap from Gurnemanz's statement that Amfortas was seduced by a mysterious radiant beauty to our thinking "Well, it's got to have been Kundry, hasn't it?" really shouldn't be that easy to make.

And act two was very fine as well. The ritualistic movements of the flower maidens, which I thought looked a mite dodgy at the beginning of the act, worked rather effectively towards the end, culminating in a nice (almost-) solution to the Problem Of The Spear Chuck.

Nothing to do with this particular staging, but as always with this opera I had the distinct feeling that a few trims here and there would improve things a tad. That apart, this is cementing its position as the best Parsifal I've ever seen. Here's to the grand finale: and the inevitable thought of just what this team could have done with the Ring...

Edited to add:

Just finished. Stunning. Beautifully done all round. This is what music drama is all about.

Bert

[Resurrection Man]

It's the act two interval, and what a splendid production this is: intelligent, moving and often gripping, despite the sometimes almost fatally slow pace of the work itself, with lovely and obviously deeply-felt interaction between the characters. Visually too it's striking without being in any way gimmicky: very impressive lighting and projection work in particular.

And after act one, there went the Met, crassly breaking the spell with an onstage interview with the Parsifal scant seconds after the curtain had fallen. Unbelievable.

I had a few very tiny quibbles, chiefly this: I don't think I've ever seen a production - and this one appears so far to be no exception - which makes a real effort to present the act one Kundry as markedly different from the figure she's
due to become in act two. Lank hair and a drabber costume just don't cut it: she should surely look barely human. The leap from Gurnemanz's statement that Amfortas was seduced by a mysterious radiant beauty to our thinking "Well, it's got to have been Kundry, hasn't it?" really shouldn't be that easy to make.

And act two very fine as well. The ritualistic movements of the flower maidens, which I thought looked a tad dodgy at the beginning of the act, worked rather effectively towards the end, culminating in a nice (almost-) solution to the Problem Of The Spear Chuck.

Nothing to do with this particular staging, but as always with this opera I had the distinct feeling that a few trims here and there would improve it a good deal. That apart, this is cementing its position as the best Parsifal I've ever seen. Here's to the grand finale: and the inevitable thought of just what this team could have done with the Ring...

Edited to add:

Just finished. Stunning. Beautifully done all round.

Bert

You're right there, Bert. That audience couldn't wait for the music to die down at the end of Act 1 before they saw fit to slap their flippers together. Pah! Bloody Americans.

[kernelbogey]

You're right there, Bert. That audience couldn't wait for the music to die down at the end of Act 1 before they saw fit to slap their flippers together. Pah! Bloody Americans.

They don't clap over the closing bars because they're Americans, but because it's the culture of that particular house that it's considered acceptable. And the last time I was in the US all the humans appeared to me to have normal hands, not flippers.

Don't be so bloody rude, RM.

kb