Parsifal (ROH)

[underthecountertenor]

Simon O'Neill was excellent last night, as was the cast as a whole (although Denoke did seem to tire during Act II). The orchestra were on great form, but the chorus singing was out of this world. I have never heard the onstage chorus melt (I can think of no other word) into the offstage as it did last night during the grail scene in Act I. The production is one that I need, and want, to see again. Utterly absorbing, and I was spellbound throughout as I never have been before in Parsifal. I eagerly await the DVD.

[aeolium]

The production is one that I need, and want, to see again.

It's being shown as a live broadcast to cinemas I think on Wednesday 18 December.

[Flosshilde]

It is indeed, & Cineworld are charging around £15 for it - very reasonable. I'm sorely tempted, but think that I won't be able to fit it in

(& actually I found the volume for the Met's broadcast rather too much, & detracted from the experience)

[underthecountertenor]

It's being shown as a live broadcast to cinemas I think on Wednesday 18 December.

Yes, and the cameras were in last night 'rehearsing' for the 18th. I think I'll struggle to make it, so close to Christmas, but will happily settle for the DVD(s) in due course.

[ostuni]

Only £12.50 at my local Vue, since I turned 60 this year...

I know what you mean about the high volume level - we saw the NT's Frankenstein there a few weeks ago, and it was definitely too loud. Still, it might help to stop me nodding off (see this Monday's Guardian).

[Richard Tarleton]

About the only things Hugh Canning liked were the orchestra and Pappano - but an interesting review in the ST. I like his comment [I think short quotes are permissible, no?]

....the sometimes questionable theories and opinions of endless self-styled Wagner experts and commentators. What used to be imparted to audiences through programme notes now has to be staged, it seems. It is a recipe for obfuscation and incoherence, neither of which Langridge avoids here

[DracoM]

Dec 11th R3: Is it just me or is this a fantastically SLOW Act 1? It feels as it's falling apart

[Flosshilde]

Just short of two hours, but I think it just about held together.

[DracoM]

And actually co-ordination between chorus and pit left a bit to be desired. Finale of Act 1 the most understated / maybe even underpowered I think I have ever heard. Had little mystery or hint of the sublime. Hope it was better on site than it came across on radio.

[DracoM]

Sorry......and he is taking Act 2 at one HELL of a lick so far.

[Flosshilde]

He's got to make up time - there are people with trains to catch!

[slarty]

I'm afraid the soprano has a very short top. anything above G is dodgy to say the least and her declamation is poor.
Oh to be back in the house when Amy was singing Kundry.

[Bert Coules]

Interesting comments about the tempi. I'd forgotten this was on and tuned in about halfway through act two, and to my ears it sounded unusually slow. Parsifal isn't exactly a speedy piece but I found myself wanting things to push on a bit faster than they were (and I saw Goodall do it!).

That was an amazing silence after the music ended: presumably there's an arresting stage picture held for a few seconds and only then does the curtain fall. Bravo.

[DracoM]

Well, Bert, to my ears the applause at the end of Act 1 was chasteningly perfunctory and rather reflected my own underwhelm. Maybe some at ROH did not clap because at Bayreuth one doesn't?

And agree about Kundry - tad pressed here and there.

Interesting that the BBC seem to be making the major case that Amfortas is really the central focus of the opera, and that a gormless Parsifal does what he does by blind instinct rather than any worked out attitude. Contrasts for me with Kollo for Solti whom one feels is at the end of a long spiritually and physically exhausting search in himself and journey during which he has worked out how mitleid can be applied - you feel Kollo will retire to mystic solitary contemplation - or very differently Kaufmann who seems to see Parsifal returning to lead the Grail Knights back to a cleansed, focused renewed collective life, different, but renewed. He seems a dynamic Parsifal coming into his own after truly ghastly Act 2 suffering. This ROH Parsifal [O’Neil] seems a much lesser figure even than the morally colossal figure of Pape's Gurnemanz - also wonderful at the Met. He sounds still bubbling vague platitudes compared to Gurnemanz. This Parsifal still does not seem to know at the end any more than at the beginning, BUT now he knows what ritual gestures to perform to cure Kundry and Amfortas, but isn't necessarily clear about the rationale behind the ritual. Is it in O'Neil's range - or maybe the production's range? Maybe it is all about blind passions healing themselves?

If you have an almost naked 12 yr old boy as your Grail in Act 1 [erm??], then what on earth can you have in Act 3 when the Grail is revealed in VERY different circs and presumably to unite, repair and heal, even re-kindle the knights? Martin Handley's description suggests the ICU is EMPTY at the end, no boy, no Christ sub, no sacrificial gestalt, which says to me that it's all been a preparation for emptiness, nothing, revealing it’s been a sort of lie, a cheat, a deception. And ALL that Parsifal has come back to do is just perform the physical actions of a walking A&E.

Baffled: the production seems to have so changed the visual image of the Grail that it's very hard to see what we take away at the end. Having a near-naked boy as the Grail is indeed a coup de theatre, but honestly....is it any more? Does Act 3 develop it, reveal it, contextualise it? Provide at least a sort of answer to the Parsifal conundrum?

And Act 3 was unbelievably slow and for me without visuals incoherent. Finley clearly tired audibly in Act 3 - maybe slow tempi took it out of him? Sorry, it just seemed to maunder and dawdle.

[Richard Tarleton]

If you have an almost naked 12 yr old boy as your Grail in Act 1 [erm??], then what on earth can you have in Act 3 when the Grail is revealed in VERY different circs and presumably to unite, repair and heal, even re-kindle the knights? Martin Handley's description suggests the ICU is EMPTY at the end, no boy, no Christ sub, no sacrificial gestalt, which says to me that it's all been a preparation for emptiness, nothing, revealing it’s been a sort of lie, a cheat, a deception. And ALL that Parsifal has come back to do is just perform the physical actions of a walking A&E.

Just to clarify, a teenage (well, older at any rate) "Grail" does make an appearance in Act 3, when the knights are trying to force Amfortas to celebrate, but when Parsifal comes to do the honours the "Grail" is no longer there - presumably Parsifal has released them from all that. Had to think about it for a while after the performance (I was at the first night, see above).

I didn't listen on the radio, I imagine it was a challenging production for the excellent Martin H to convey.