Photos: Enrico Nawrath
Oxana Arkaeva
The centre of the “Parsifal´s” story builds another personal triangle
between King Amfortas, Kundry and Parsifal. Contrary to “Tristan”
love-triangle, the “Parsifal” one concentrates on the significance of the human
will and its role in the formation of one’s personality. The story develops around the search of “the pure fool, who is
enlightened through compassion”. The one who has to save the brotherhood of
Holy Grail from decay and cure the eternally bleeding wound of the Holy Grail
King Amfortas. To be able to succeed in this task, the pure fool must reconquer
the holy spear from renegade knight Klingsor. The later has confined himself in his
castle after emasculated himself in defying his desire for holiness and
incapability of leading a chaste life. There the beautiful Kundry and her
entourage seduce all willing knight, including Amfortas. Excluded from the brotherhood, Klingsor steals the holy spear and
injures Amfortas, thus causing him a never-healing wound. Kundry, now a
repentant woman, strives to heal it with herbs and potions. Parsifal, an
ignorant fool, returns after years of wandering and brings the holy spear back
to the Holy Grail, thus saving it. Amfortas finally enforces his redeeming
death, wants to reveal the Grail one last time. Parsifal is anointed as a new
Grail King and donates baptism to the dying Kundry and closes Amfortas wound
with the holy spear. Parsifal reveals the Grail, and a white dove floats down
on him as a sign of divine grace. “Parsifal’s” Libretto is based on the life of
a real historical person: a knight Parzival. Brought up in the wood by his
mother, he came to be a knight at the King Arthur’s court and achieved great
fame for his heroic acts and pure life. Wagner first encountered the
story by Chréthien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach as a young conductor in
Dresden in 1845. It took him 37 years to finally finish the score and the
premiere took place on July 26th, 1882 in his new theatre in Bayreuth. Wagner,
who as mentioned before, was obsessed with the idea of a “perfect”
human being, evolved himself in life-long search after “Salvation
for the Savior”. This quest was ignited and influenced by ideas of two major
personalities: Schopenhauer and Buddha.
Schopenhauer’s philosophy is
based on the concept of the denial as a result of individually influenced will.
Buddha defines the human will as being affected by outer, higher will, thus
creating an eternal knowledge-thirst that pushes forward person’s goals and
actions. These two contradictory theses found its reflection in
“Parsifal’s” story in the brotherhood of Holy Grail and the pleasure garden of
Klingsor. Both Amfortas and Parsifal encounter these two worlds experiencing
different results: Amfortas endures, both physically and socially, a painful
defeat and leads an existence in expectation of the outer salvation. Parsifal,
on the other hand, resists the motherly charms of Kundry and defies Klingsor,
thus brings the salvation to the holy grail. The Eric Laufenberg´s interpretation
of “Parsifal” left an impression of being somehow misplaced and somewhat
overloaded with mystic-philosophical video projections as in-between acts
transformations well as numerous symbols and props.
Presenting us with an
impressive stage design by Erich Jäkel and lighting by Reinhardt
Traub, Laufenberg shifts away from Wagner’s original idea of
Stage-Consecration-Play and places the action in the modern times, somewhere in
the middle of the Near East war zone. Jessica Karge dresses
resemble present-day clothes from the Middle East or Africa, thus visually
underlining Laufenberg´s ideas. First, we see a church, where
the war refugees are being sheltered and where the holy grail is used as a
bathtub. In the second act, we experience a lavish oriental palace, where
Klingsor keeps some brothel and castigates himself in front of the crucifix
shrine. In the third act, there are ruins of the bombed church covered by lush
jungle vegetation. The later transforms into a utopian paradise, where young
naked girls enjoy a warm summer rain and all religions exist in freedom.
Regardless all the beautiful stage sets and lighting, this interpretation
remains indifferent, sparkling no real controversy and full of all sorts of
clichés. Despite all said, the evening
surely can be considered musically and from the singing point of view a
challenging one. First, for the large singing parts and secondary to the
enormous complexity and subtlety of the orchestra score. Conductors’ Hartmut
Haenchen reading is marked by pompous but at the same time tenacious
sound in the prelude to the first act, an energetic and stirring one in the
second act and the perfectly balanced, transcendent and full of vibrant colours
in the act three. The real stars of this evening
are singers, highlighting George Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz
and Elena Pankratova as Kundry. Zeppenfeld shapes this
demanding part with beautifully carried Bass, perfectly secure throughout the
whole range. He draws long and full of endurance singing curves and presents us
with excellent diction. Pankratova is a great Kundry. Her gentle, velvety, yet
large, well-focused voice unfolds with no difficulty in the acoustics of the
theatre, and her German diction is excellent. She also deserves special praise
for her economical, concentrated and yet impressive acting that made her
omnipresent throughout the performance. Andreas Schager as
Parsifal possesses a large, well-focused voice and tremendous acting skills. He
sometimes gives too much sound and power, but convinces in portraying this
complex character. Bass-baritone Derek Welton as Klingsor
presents full sounding, mighty voices with excellent diction and should be
praised for his authentic portrayal of the torn, renegade knight. Güntehr
Groissböck as Titurel impresses with velvety, noble bass and Ryan
McKinny as Amfortas possesses a big, organ-like sounding bass and
touches by his sensitive, emotional acting. Apart from this great
ensemble, the special praise should be given to the fabulous Bayreuth choir (Eberhard
Friedrich) for its majestic sound and phenomenal acting skills. Another
praise goes to the ladies-quintet in the second act, who not only presented beautiful
and well-blending voices but convinced in their acting first as veiled Muslim
women and later as seductive harem servants. This last opera by Richard Wagner was specially composed adapting to the
unique acoustics of Festspielhaus and exhibits composer’s message of universal
love and eternal freedom. During the last “Parsifal” performance in August 1882
composer himself took the button and conducted the show from the transformation
scene till the end. Soon afterwards he travelled to Venice, where on 13.
February, the heart attack has terminated his life
