Prom 57 - 25.08.13: Wagner – Parsifal

[Sir Velo]

I'm still getting the idea that I'm being mis-represented....
As I see it, in the case of Parsifal, it's for the conductor to decide on tempi and to inform the concert promoter of running times, and for the promoter to do the arithmetic. I do not see that that is asking too much of a professional conductor about a performance that is going to be broadcast live, leaving aside any issues about finishing times and the audience getting home.

I sympathise with several of the points you make; you raise some interesting points as to whose responsibility programming is. It's a regular complaint of concertgoers that concerts overrun, forcing snap decisions as to whether to leave early, in order to catch the last train/bus etc; or to risk all for a potentially overwhelming musical experience.

Have you contacted the BBC/RAH/Proms organisation? It would be interesting to know how they actually decide on the printed timings. Do they get the office gopher to pick a CD at random and then work out timings based on that? Or do they speak to the conductor? Given the huge task of putting on the vast number of Proms concerts under considerable time pressure, I imagine that there is probably little input from the artists concerned. In most cases, it seems that a built in safety factor is budgeted. "OK, it's Bruckner 8; better allow 85 minutes". Most of the time this will be satisfactory. 3-5 minutes overrun will rarely be crucial. However, in the case of gargantuan works, such as Parisfal, a 10% differential in timing can make a difference of 30-40 minutes in performance. This year's Wagner-fest at the Proms has been unique. I expect what's happened here is an oversight which would be rectified in subsequent years, by discussion with the conductor. Maybe we need a few test cases of unhappy punters suing the RAH for unscheduled hotel stays, or taxi fares.

[PhilipT]

Hmmm. I take your point, but - as I've tried to say already - for a live broadcast wouldn't the BBC still need to consult with the conductor in order to get the precision they'd look for? I do accept that, twelve-year-olds or not, it's for the Proms Director to take responsibility for what's printed in the Guide and the programme. I've submitted a question on 'Ask the Director', but I don't hold out a lot of hope for an answer.

[slarty]

Hmmm. I take your point, but - as I've tried to say already - for a live broadcast wouldn't the BBC still need to consult with the conductor in order to get the precision they'd look for? I do accept that, twelve-year-olds or not, it's for the Proms Director to take responsibility for what's printed in the Guide and the programme. I've submitted a question on 'Ask the Director', but I don't hold out a lot of hope for an answer.

As someone who worked on the orchestral management scene,I can say that the BBC would not normally consult a conductor, unless it was one of their own staff conductors.
The might,as in the case of the Barenboim Ring, contact the Staatsoper Berlin general office to get the timings of the previous April's Ring performances to help with their programming information.
They certainly would not approach Barenboim for this information. It is not info that a conductor would normally retain.
The BBC being the huge organisation that it is retains timing information going back decades. I personally think, like FHG, that it was a screw-up by one of the staff, who either did not research it properly, or typed it wrongly.
As someone who knows, the conductor is the last person who would have this information.
It would be the organisation responsible for presenting the prom. This is a Beeb mess-up.
I also don't much care for Sir Mark Elder, but he is blameless in this case.
He is probably much more to blame for accepting (or recommending) the Gurnemanz, who is now well past the sell-by date for this role.

[Prommer]

I am only just about to catch up with this, after travels to Bayreuth. I am also soon to listen to a copy of the 1971 Parsifal conducted by Reginald Goodall, with Gottlob Frick as Gurnemanz, who came out of retirement to sing the role (well, at least the opening night in his case). Older Gurnemanz interpreters are not necessarily 'out', but I will make sure to compare and contrast GF and JohnTom!

[slarty]

I am only just about to catch up with this, after travels to Bayreuth. I am also soon to listen to a copy of the 1971 Parsifal conducted by Reginald Goodall, with Gottlob Frick as Gurnemanz, who came out of retirement to sing the role (well, at least the opening night in his case). Older Gurnemanz interpreters are not necessarily 'out', but I will make sure to compare and contrast GF and JohnTom!

You won't believe your ears when you hear Frick in that performance. (It's the dress rehearsal, by the way , the whole thing grinds to a halt in Act 3 , problems with the off stage chorus.) Frick sang so well, during the dress, and then on the first night, he was immediately asked to continue the run of performances. After a night's sleep he wisely decided not to continue. I saw two of these performances, with Ernst Wiemann and later Peter Meven as Gurnemanz.

The big difference between Frick and Tomlinson was that Frick never moved out of his fach, his range, whereas JT moved up from Bass to Bass-Baritone and after many Wotans and Sachs, he paid the price. He wrecked the top of his voice so that even in a Bass role like Gurnemanz, his voice would wobble or worse. It is not pleasant to listen to. Frick's voice, however was as pure at the end as it was in his prime, he just did not have the stamina for 7 performances of Gurnemanz any more.
He was,more or less in retirement when he came to CG in 1971 at the age of 65.
You will definitely enjoy the Reggie performance.

[Prommer]

I am looking forward to this even more now - appetite duly whetted, so thank you! How old is JT now?

This reminds me of what I was discussing with a friend on the Gruner Hugel - Frick is the epitome I believe of what is called the 'black bass' in terms of sound. Granted that he didn't attempt to change or modify his fach, can one nevertheless conclude that singers of this voice type might have a longer life? I guess what I mean is, do singers lose it at the bottom of their voice in the same way as at the top, especially the basses (black or otherwise)?

[Bert Coules]

You won't believe your ears when you hear Frick in that performance. (It's the dress rehearsal, by the way , the whole thing grinds to a halt in Act 3 , problems with the off stage chorus.)

Presumably you're not talking about the commercially-released recording, which doesn't have Frick, alas, but Louis Hendrikx. So is there another, unauthorised, recording available?

[slarty]

There is no hard and fast rule, but good husbandry always pays off. The less abuse one inflicts on the voice, the longer it stays in condition. Windgassen was a good example. After a performance he refused to speak until the next day. That is why he disliked the USA so much, the organised socialising after performances was anathema to him. He refused to join in. After leaving Bayreuth for the last time in 1970, he continued to sing the same roles on and off right up until his death in 1974 from heart failure. I heard him in 1972 and 73 , he sounded just as good as ever. It must have been a great strain, but not on his vocal chords.
Hotter, whom I revered, sang the big roles too early in his career, and he paid for it later in life. He told me that he should never have sung when suffering from hay fever, another strain on the voice that is irrevocable.
The greatest tragedy was George London. Finished at 45, just when he was due to sing the Wotans at Bayreuth.
He never stayed in one range, jumping from bass (Boris) to Amonasro to Wolfram (high baritone.) and Amfortas. Then after singing Wotan on the Decca Rheingold, he started to sing them on stage at the Met and in Europe. That was the old MET, a huge theatre compared to anything here in Europe. It was too much,
His voice gave up. Anyone who has had the misfortune of hearing his performance as Wotan at the Met in 1965, has my sympathy. It was dreadful - he immediately cancelled Bayreuth that summer in the hope of recovery after a summer's rest, but it was too late. By the middle of the next season he was finished.
Lawrence Tibbett was another who could sing bass to high baritone and for parties after performances he would stand at the piano and belt out "Vesti la Giubba" just for fun. One of the great Verdi baritone voices and possibly the best Wotan voice I have heard (the Stokowski Wotan's farewell")
However he too was done by the time he was in his mid to late forties. Another great loss.

Coming back to Frick, he was a very small man slight of figure and the sound he produced was unique. He was also very intelligent and realised early on that he could go on for a long time by remaining a bass.
The temptation to sing in other branches is strong and many have gone too far or too quickly( Peter Hofmann) and very few have managed to remain at the top, by switching around. I can think of two, I can think of others also, and their voices have similar characteristics although they could not be more different. Domingo and Josef Greindl.
Domingo started as a baritone, pushed up to lyric, then spinto, then heldentenor, and now he is back to baritone at the age of 70+ . Greindl started as bass and remained so until his early 50s when he moved from Pogner to Sachs and in smaller houses, Wotan. His crowning glory as Wotan was to take the role of the Wanderer in Wieland's new Ring production at Bayreuth in 1965 when Theo Adam could not handle learning all three roles for the new cycle. He sang wonderfully.
He sang it again there in 1968. He alternated with his bass roles and suffered no apparent harm. He also sang the title role of the Flying Dutchman.
I saw him in Berlin singing Rocco ,aged 67 and sounding just as he always did .
These are two outstanding exceptions, but unfortunately operatic history is littered with singers who have tried and "died".
One last example , the great Elizabeth Rethberg ,famed for Verdi and Elizebeth/Elsa type roles, shredded her voice for good after singing the Siegfried Brunnhilde while still at the top of her game. She retired soon after.
One of the great soprano voices equally as good in Italian or German.

[Prommer]

Thank you, slarty - great stuff. In Bayreuth, Wolfgang Koch is doing the opposite to JT, ie approaching the role from above, as a baritone. Barenboim among others persuaded JT to make this transition. I wonder what is driving Koch, as I last heard him as Sachs at CG in January 2012, and then Alberich last autumn...

He was struggling with the Walkure Wotan, especially at the beginning of the great monologues, only just able to reach down to the notes, and then his voice was disappearing.

[slarty]

Yes, I agree, I listened to the broadcasts live and was not overly impressed with Koch's singing. In fact I was only really impressed by Petrenko's conducting. I had already heard Kampe at the proms and she was good.
I amam very interested in the stories circulating here that enough is enough and that the Wagner daughters days may be numbered. As for Koch's ambition to turn what is a decent baritone voice into a Helden baritone, well that only time will tell.
As for singing Sachs , it is easier but there is no depth and a great deal of the resonance is lost by only having the high notes, not my kind of Sachs. it reminds me of two other baritones who did it, and made the transition eventually, Thomas Stewart and Bernd Weikl. They did well. Terfel did it also, but at some cost ,that lovely bloom on his voice is gone, it is only a memory now. I wish Mr Koch well, I just hate it when we are offered, what is very much, a work in progress, with no real feeling that he might make it, and at Festival prices to boot. The best Wotan voice I have heard this year is Terje Stensvold (70 in October). I heard his recent work in the Frankfurt Ring and the recent Wanderer at the proms was icing on the cake. The real thing!

[Prommer]

Well, to the point about the Wagner sisters, the word is that 'their card is now marked'. This from one or two of the singers I spoke to.

The reasons? Everything from Katharina's apparent jealousy of successful directors such as Herheim (the debacle over the broadcast of Parsifal and the delay or even scrapping of its issuing on DVD), and the suspicion that in her choices she is not doing the best thing by the Festival therefore; to their non-appearance at the last two opening nights; to the decision (especially its communications and handling) to remove tickets allocations from the Wagner societies; to the mess of the Festspielhaus being covered up and Wahnfried closed during the bicentenary; to the decision to a) hire Castorf in the first place, b) not to have road-tested his take and concept more thoroughly, and c) not to have intervened to stop some of the excesses, especially those that openly showed a degree of disdain for key elements of the work and/or for the audience.

Not all of these factors weigh equally, of course, or even are negative to everyone, but the shopkeepers and hoteliers of the town are also rising up because people have been leaving during the Ring - and custom is being lost, both now and potentially for the future. I gather this has never really happened before, at least in such numbers. The town has significant representation on the board of trustees. Another reason why they may be accelerating online booking, under the guise of transparency but also to shore things up!

[DracoM]

On some grapevines it is being rumoured hat some singers currently on contract are trying to escape. Is this true?

[Prommer]

I don't know that, but I suspect that it might be true, all other things being considered. The additional sadness is that Castorf is not really very engaged in directing the singers - he deliberately wants them to get on with that, within his framework. Some experienced singers might enjoy that, for a change, but it doesn't conduce to a general sense of cohesion and purpose, and it risks leaving the less experienced flailing about.

[slarty]

Presumably you're not talking about the commercially-released recording, which doesn't have Frick, alas, but Louis Hendrikx. So is there another, unauthorised, recording available?

Sorry Bert. I missed your question. This is a private recording of the Dress rehearsal which was made for Reggie and was found in his collection along with a few other items.
It also has the other Klingsor of Herbert Fliether who took the DR and the first two performances because McIntyre was ill.
It was obviously made using the broadcast microphone set-up because the sound is every bit as good as the Heritage issue.

[Resurrection Man]

Here it is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Parsifal-Daniel-Barenboim/dp/B004W7GPXI/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1377787191&sr=1-1&keywords=parsifal+barenboim

or
http://www.amazon.de/Parsifal-Daniel...ifal+barenboim

Slarty, many thanks for pointing this one out. Normally I find DB's pace too slow but the singing more than makes up for it. A superb performance.