Opera Review: a political Parsifal in Bayreuth, Germany
Parsifal
Music and libretto by Richard Wagner
Directed by Uwe Eric Laufenberg
Conducted by Semyon Bychkov
Starring Andreas Schager, Günther Grössbock, and Elena Pankratova
Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Germany
August 22, 2019
This was my second trip to the revered Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany. Each summer since the late 1800’s this small Bavarian city has hosted productions of Wagner’s operas, with some pauses for wars and for some post WWII de-nazification (Wagner’s widow Cosima was a big Hitler fan). Initially ultratraditional (think Brunhilde with helmet and breastplates), the festival productions entered an abstract/symbolic phase after WW2, intended to de-link it from its conservative Nazi/nationalist past. More recently the festival has favored directors’ creativity in re-interpreting the Wagnerian canon. This was terrific when I first attended six years ago, with an extraordinary Parsifal done as an allegory of German history (complete with collapsing swastikas on stage) and Lohengrin as a rat experiment designed to make the compliant rodent-like population more open to change (the chorus/city dwellers wore mouse heads throughout). Both productions I saw this year were less radical and less interesting, but maintained the exceptional musical standards of the festival.
Parsifal is particularly ripe for directorial manipulation, since it is a symbolic work with little explicit action. The knights who defend the Holy Grail have fallen on hard times, declining in energy. Their leader Amfortas is slowly (over centuries) dying of a nonhealing (syphilitic?) wound received after cavorting with the nearby fallen women in the domain of the pimp/wizard Klingsor (who has excitingly self-castrated himself). The blonde, naïve young hero Parsifal arrives, resists the temptation of Klingor and the flower girls, and restores the energy and integrity of the Grail. The End. This takes 4-5 hours, with music heavy on ritualized repetition. While there are lots of references to Christianity, Jesus is never specifically mentioned, and Wagner seemed to use the opera to explore ideas of spirituality and redemption, some coming from his readings about eastern religion. There is also a curious suspension of time that presages twentieth century relativity theory—at one point a character says that “here, time becomes space”, then the action resumes centuries later. The very plot-deficient structure gives directors the chance to use Parsifal to comment on anything that tracks to the scheme of failure and redemption. So, in 2010 Stephan Herzheim depicted a historical analogy of modern Germany: WWI era German dominance, depression-WWII decadence and fall, and postwar democratic emergence in a new multicultural state. I’ve seen other productions that place the work in futuristic space or even within the bleeding wound of Amfortas.
This production by Uwe Eric Laufenberg was controversial, and not entirely coherent. Some elements were conservative—e.g. there were actual knights of the Grail and onstage celebration of religious rituals. The wounded Amfortas was consistently depicted as a Christ figure, sometimes crucified, or drenched in blood.
Music and libretto by Richard Wagner
Directed by Uwe Eric Laufenberg
Conducted by Semyon Bychkov
Starring Andreas Schager, Günther Grössbock, and Elena Pankratova
Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Germany
August 22, 2019
This was my second trip to the revered Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany. Each summer since the late 1800’s this small Bavarian city has hosted productions of Wagner’s operas, with some pauses for wars and for some post WWII de-nazification (Wagner’s widow Cosima was a big Hitler fan). Initially ultratraditional (think Brunhilde with helmet and breastplates), the festival productions entered an abstract/symbolic phase after WW2, intended to de-link it from its conservative Nazi/nationalist past. More recently the festival has favored directors’ creativity in re-interpreting the Wagnerian canon. This was terrific when I first attended six years ago, with an extraordinary Parsifal done as an allegory of German history (complete with collapsing swastikas on stage) and Lohengrin as a rat experiment designed to make the compliant rodent-like population more open to change (the chorus/city dwellers wore mouse heads throughout). Both productions I saw this year were less radical and less interesting, but maintained the exceptional musical standards of the festival.
Parsifal is particularly ripe for directorial manipulation, since it is a symbolic work with little explicit action. The knights who defend the Holy Grail have fallen on hard times, declining in energy. Their leader Amfortas is slowly (over centuries) dying of a nonhealing (syphilitic?) wound received after cavorting with the nearby fallen women in the domain of the pimp/wizard Klingsor (who has excitingly self-castrated himself). The blonde, naïve young hero Parsifal arrives, resists the temptation of Klingor and the flower girls, and restores the energy and integrity of the Grail. The End. This takes 4-5 hours, with music heavy on ritualized repetition. While there are lots of references to Christianity, Jesus is never specifically mentioned, and Wagner seemed to use the opera to explore ideas of spirituality and redemption, some coming from his readings about eastern religion. There is also a curious suspension of time that presages twentieth century relativity theory—at one point a character says that “here, time becomes space”, then the action resumes centuries later. The very plot-deficient structure gives directors the chance to use Parsifal to comment on anything that tracks to the scheme of failure and redemption. So, in 2010 Stephan Herzheim depicted a historical analogy of modern Germany: WWI era German dominance, depression-WWII decadence and fall, and postwar democratic emergence in a new multicultural state. I’ve seen other productions that place the work in futuristic space or even within the bleeding wound of Amfortas.
This production by Uwe Eric Laufenberg was controversial, and not entirely coherent. Some elements were conservative—e.g. there were actual knights of the Grail and onstage celebration of religious rituals. The wounded Amfortas was consistently depicted as a Christ figure, sometimes crucified, or drenched in blood.
The setting was somewhere in Iraq, and the general theme of the production was of humankind’s redemption through rejection of organized religions. At the opening, the knights are running an immigrant/homeless shelter populated by people of different races and religions, interrupted by US soldiers roaming around with guns. This is echoed in the ending, when the revived knights gather Jews, Moslems, and Christians, and all toss their religious icons into the coffin of the dead knight Titurel, suggesting a redemption through casting aside religious differences by junking your own narrow-minded religion. This was an interesting take, but was oddly contravened in Act 2 by depicting the evil empire of Klingsor in an Islamic palace, with the seductive flower girls initially in chadors, later in belly dancer garb (the juxtaposition was a little offensive to me, rather like the Catholic stereotype of virgin-whore). This interpretive choice set up an uncomfortable dynamic of good Christian knights vs. evil, wanton Islamic wizards and flower girls.
I am not sure how this fit with the religious redemption theme. It was also of concern when this production opened four years ago after a terrorist bombing by Islamic radicals in Germany, causing the festival to open under heavy police security. The critical, fascinating character of Kundry, written by Wagner as a tortured eternally wandering Jew, eternally condemned for laughing at Christ on the cross, here became purely Islamic. She appeared in a chador at the start of the opera, later participating in the flower girls’ attempted seduction of Parsifal. As written by Wagner, she later evokes Mary Magdalene by washing Parsifal’s feet. This was done literally in this production, again a conservative choice not quite coherent with the antireligious theme. Other choices were just odd. The “Good Friday” episode where the flowers bloom in the meadow, symbolizing the regeneration of the Grail knights, here became huge, Jurassic Park-style tropical plants meters long, overgrowing the chapel like some sort of mutant horticulture gone wrong—and all that in Iraq. Why? Had centuries of global warming converted Iraq into a tropical region? Regeneration was also shown by naked youths reveling in an onstage waterfall, sort of an Adam and Eve reference. I liked the video in Act 1, demonstrating the opera’s space-time futurism by zooming out from the map of Iraq, to the Earth, to the galaxy, then to who knows where in space, then zooming back in to Iraq, now in another era in time. All-in-all there were many ideas, but a sadly incoherent overall scheme to flesh out an interesting idea about organized religion as the source of world evil.
Musically things were much better. The performances of German baritone Günther Grössbock as Guernemanz and the Russian soprano Elena Pankratova as Kundry were the best I have heard. Guernemanz is a critical role, not interesting in himself, but important as a narrator. His long narratives, dull in many performances, here became gripping due to the wonderful tone, diction, and acting of Mr. Grössbock. Ms. Pankratova fleshed out the complexities of Kundry with a rich yet supple voice, superb dynamic range, and excellent acting. I think she may eventually be a superb Isolde or Brunnhhilde. Andreas Schager’s Parsifal was about as good as we can expect in this era of no real Wagnerian tenors. He lacked any ring or richness of voice, but acted well, and did not bark or shout as often happens in these tenor roles. He did a nice job of showing how the clueless novice eventually became experienced then redemptive. The conducting of Semyon Bychkov was well balanced, sympathetic to the singers, and often exciting. It lacked the relentless pulsation that can transform the best performances into a sort of space-time vortex, sucking you into the opera’s orbit. The wonderful Festival Chorus was rich-sounding and responsive, as always. The excellent music in the end overcame some inconsistent directorial choices to create a good performance, not up to what I saw six years ago here, but at least one that left me pondering about the music and meaning.
Musically things were much better. The performances of German baritone Günther Grössbock as Guernemanz and the Russian soprano Elena Pankratova as Kundry were the best I have heard. Guernemanz is a critical role, not interesting in himself, but important as a narrator. His long narratives, dull in many performances, here became gripping due to the wonderful tone, diction, and acting of Mr. Grössbock. Ms. Pankratova fleshed out the complexities of Kundry with a rich yet supple voice, superb dynamic range, and excellent acting. I think she may eventually be a superb Isolde or Brunnhhilde. Andreas Schager’s Parsifal was about as good as we can expect in this era of no real Wagnerian tenors. He lacked any ring or richness of voice, but acted well, and did not bark or shout as often happens in these tenor roles. He did a nice job of showing how the clueless novice eventually became experienced then redemptive. The conducting of Semyon Bychkov was well balanced, sympathetic to the singers, and often exciting. It lacked the relentless pulsation that can transform the best performances into a sort of space-time vortex, sucking you into the opera’s orbit. The wonderful Festival Chorus was rich-sounding and responsive, as always. The excellent music in the end overcame some inconsistent directorial choices to create a good performance, not up to what I saw six years ago here, but at least one that left me pondering about the music and meaning.
The festival is slowly changing with the times. The hall remains barely cushioned and unventilated, a big problem earlier this summer when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. My seat was in row 7, and interestingly, when the big curtain opened, I got a little blast of cool air, so I wonder if the stage area is in fact cooled, violating the age-old canons of the Wagner shrine. Also new is online ticket ordering (there is still a waiting list), replacing the antique mail-order forms, and supposedly opening up tickets to a wider base of people. This may just be good old fashioned competition, as there are now other rival opera festivals, including in nearby Munich, that are stealing some of Bayreuth's thunder. Wagner is likely rolling over in his grave.
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