Parsifal powerful but could use more of the rite stuff
Parsifal was Richard Wagner’s operatic swan song. In its renunciation of worldly pleasures and desires in favour of redemption and transcendent grace, it encapsulated the composer’s intellectual and spiritual journey.
It also is the most problematic of Wagner’s operas to present in concert. By eschewing any visual or design element apart from lighting, this Opera Australia performance unwittingly diluted the opera’s impact.
The religious ceremonies in the first and third acts, for instance, are accompanied solely by long stretches of orchestral music. Despite being exquisitely played by the Opera Australia Orchestra, one had little sense of their ritual power. Ultimately, one was left marvelling at the genius of the music but slightly unmoved by the drama.
Wagner had strong views about how tempos should be employed in his operas. Fortunately, conductor Pinchas Steinberg unerringly chose the right tempos. His measured pacing enabled the composer’s expansive, long-breathed lines to soar. Maintaining good balances and clear textures, his subtly applied doses of accelerando and smoothly shaped crescendos generated momentum and excitement when needed.
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann was acclaimed for his performances as Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2013. His interpretation here was just as fine. Through voice and gesture alone, Kaufmann charted the protagonist’s spiritual journey. All wide-eyed, clear-voiced innocence in Act I, his exquisite soft-grained sotto voce passages captured his character’s sense of wonder and ultimate serenity while his forceful clarity and ringing top register power realised Parsifal’s moments of anguished uncertainty.
Although Kaufmann was the star drawcard, his castmates were equally outstanding. American mezzosoprano Michelle DeYoung made a spectacular impact as Kundry. Strong across her range, her sinuous phrasing, strong dynamic control and appealing tone colours conveyed Kundry’s dual role as siren and penitent. Displaying remarkable stamina and superb diction, Korean bass Kwangchul Youn (Gurnemanz) sang with stentorian power and a focused sense of line, embodying his noble character’s moral authority.
Firm-voiced baritone Michael Honeyman gave an expressive performance as the guilt-racked Amfortas. By contrast, the hard-edged timbre of fellow baritone Warwick Fyfe created a gripping portrayal as the evil sorcerer Klingsor. Bass David Parkin was an imposing Titurel while six of Opera Australia’s leading sopranos and mezzos made an alluring bevy of flower maidens.
Parsifal review: Opera Australia's performance as close to ideal as possible
Peter McCallum
Parsifal, by Wagner
Opera Australia. Opera House Concert Hall. August 9
★★★★★*
Opera Australia. Opera House Concert Hall. August 9
★★★★★*
In assembling a cast as close to ideal as one could decently expect, a conductor of venerable wisdom and experience in Pinchas Steinberg, and setting free the sound of a usually straitjacketed orchestra and chorus to weave and waft around the Concert Hall's ample acoustic accommodation, Opera Australia' concert performance of Wagner's most sonically sophisticated opera, Parsifal, creates for listeners a direct path to its essence.
That essence is pure spirit expressed in sound, both sullied and cleansed, both in anguish and in bliss.
Music has always gravitated towards the spirit – it is its natural domain. By stripping away the myriad plot details of Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th century poem to leave a simple symmetrical three-act structure pivoting around a moment of self-realisation and transformation, Wagner not only crowned his own not-insubstantial achievements, but also created one of the greatest works in the repertoire.
It helps, of course, to have one of the world's great Parsifal singers, Jonas Kaufmann, in the title role. Kaufmann's approach is one of noble restraint.
There is never a hint of flamboyance or contrivance; the whole expressive weight is carried by the voice quality and immaculate polish of tone; by careful modulation of dynamic, colour and intensity; and by purity of diction and vowel.
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In the first act and a half, when the character of Parsifal is protected from corruption by unknowing foolishness, Kaufmann was subdued and dissembling like a youth who had smashed the family car and wanted to be somewhere else.
He opened out with magnificently polished focus after the transformative kiss at the centre of Act 2, each phrase beautifully sculpted and graded, each crucial moment spellbinding.
Michelle DeYoung as Kundry also broadens in this crucial transformation. In the first act her voice was richly portentous and coloured. In the seduction of Act 2, she added enveloping warmth and forceful power.
It is key to the work that this duet be the fulcrum, and here it became a riveting point of central focus.
As the wise Gurnemanz, Kwangchul Youn sang with mahogany depth and wonderfully textured roundedness, sustaining this character's crucial framing reflections in the outer acts with centred dignity.
Taking the role of the wounded Amfortas, who represents the spirit in agony, Michael Honeyman's voice captured rich autumnal colours to bring out the character's poignancy.
The image Wagner created of the open bleeding wound to represent a self-inflicted fall from grace, brings to mind the art of Francis Bacon.
That image is taken further in the figure of the self-castrated Klingsor, to whose impotent malevolence Warwick Fyfe brought terrifying ferocity, a keen-edged incisive voice, madly wandering eye and brilliant character portrayal.
David Parkin was stern and sepulchral as the ageing Titurel. Under Steinberg, the great glory of the Opera Australia Orchestra and Chorus was the subtle balance of tone and floating sense of pulse, creating finely graded textures, some firmly grounded and richly blended, others rising above the bass like delicately fractured clerestory light.
Descriptions of Wagner's conducting stress his complete freedom, but Steinberg achieved the unbounded effect of chant and dreamlike association through inner discipline and carefully weighed balance.
Musically, this is one of Opera Australia's outstanding performances in recent decades, leaving the theatrical element to blossom in the imagination.
*While the Herald only rates performances out of five, Peter would have awarded Parsifal 5½ stars if permitted.
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Here
is what he has told the Paris Opera:
I’m sorry that my cancellations have been the
source of a lot of disappointment and frustration over the past few weeks.
Of course, I can understand the irritation of
all those who had organized the expensive trips to come and listen to me.
Unfortunately, the performance of a voice of singer cannot be guaranteed and sometimes
a singer is facing events that require it to take a long rest.
When
I noticed that something was wrong with my voice, at first I thought it was a
beginning of infection. The medical examination, however, has given a different
result: the side effects of a medicine made burst a small vein on my vocal
cords.
So
I must stop singing until the haematoma has completely subsided. To avoid
permanent damage. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I must also cancel my
representations of the Tales of Hoffmann in Paris
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