Recordings Review: The Blood is the Life

The Met broadcast of Parsifal on DVD
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The kiss of life-and death. Katherine Dalayman is atop Jonas Kaufmann in the Met's Parsifal.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013 François Girard production of Wagner's Parsifal is back on the stage next month. So it's time to revisit the Sony DVDs of the Live in HD broadcast of the opera, filmed over two performances in March of that year. Watched here on two DVDs, this Parsifal remains gripping, a look back at this forward-thinking production which owes something to post-apocalyptic environmental disaster and something to an involved medical procedure show from late-night broadcast television.

The Wagner Project: Parsifal

In Wagner's last stage work, "time becomes space."
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baritone Ryan McKinny as Amfortas in the new Bayreuth production of Parsifal
which opened just this week. Photo by Enrico Nawath © 2016 Bayreuther Festspiele.

Parsifal is Wagner's last opera, the sum tota of everything he tried to achieve in his tumultuous career. It chronicles the journey of its title character from innocent fool to wise ruler of the kingdom of the Holy Grail. It's also a close, and at times unsettling examination of religious belief, Christian imagery and the power of faith. Maddeningly slow at first hearing, it sonic beauties are veiled even deliberately enigmatic--but more rewarding with each listen.

Opera Review: The Trumpet of the Swan

Parsifal at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hunting license: Gurnemanz (Kwangchal Youn) confiscates Parsifal's (Paul Groves) bow  in Act I of
Parsifal, as Kundry (Daveda Karanas) looks off. Photo by Todd Rosenberg © 2013 Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Parsifal (by director John Caird, making his house debut) is at once modern and old-fashioned, re-imagining Wagner's medieval iconography (Spear, Grail, magic garden) in a way that makes sense to a modern audience and still respects the rich stage history of this opera at Bayreuth and elsewhere. Mr. Caird's production uses six principal dancers (the choreographer is Tim Claydon) to create a vision of flying swans, woodland creatures (Kundry arrives by anthropomorphic horseback) and more movement than one usually sees in this static opera. The results are emotionally satisfying and magical, and familiar enough to please even the most conservative Wagnerite.

Recordings Review: I Pity the Fool

Marek Janowski's 2011 Berlin Parsifal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Parsifal and Kundry as painted by Rogellio de Egusquiza.

This is a live recording of Wagner's Parsifal made on April 8, 2011 before an audience at a single Berlin concert. in a single Berlin concert. It is the third entry in Marek Janowski's ambitious plan to record and release all ten Wagner operas on PentaTone, an independent German label (distributed by Naxos) that specializes in multi-channel hybrid Super Audio CDs. It falls among recordings like Pierre Boulez' and Herbert Kegel's that favor a lean and mean approach to presenting Wagner's final opera.