As J alluded to below, we put on our game faces last Friday and took in this 1981 Parsifal vid from Bayreuth, all part of our training regimen for the big game with Hep, Waltraud, Rene "Say Hey" Pape, and Jimmy in May. Parsifal is Siegfried Jerusalem, Kundry is Eva Randova, Bernd Weikl--Amfortas, and Hans Soltin is the 'Manz. Horst Stein QBs. Unless you have access to J's stash, I'm not sure where you can find it.
While it may have been all the delicious food and drink with which J plied me, Parsifal seems to be the Wagner most unfit for video. The big grail scenes, which are hypnotic to listen to on the ear phones, and (I'm told) a near spiritual revelation in the opera house, just don't register so good on the small screen.
That said, the production is super priddy, with trippy forest/garden/grail realm backdrops in green and hot pink, and the intra-act scene changes are pulled off with nice flourish and minimal cheesy fx. The costuming is from the "everyone gets a mumuu" school of Wagner fashion, but what are you going to do?
Siegfried Jerusalem sounds buckets better than in the Met Ring vids of seven years later. Not quite as demanding a role I suppose, but still--he's in full control here and produces some real nice sounds. Also, his 70s white boy fro is far more flattering than the feathered bidness he sports as Siegfried. Eva Randova turns out a very memorable Kundry. She looks the part very well--the perfect "oh hot--no, wait, she's crazy! Run!" face to bring it all home at the end of Act II. Soltin brings an especially lovely baritone and long sweet phrases to Gurnemanz. Weikl did an ok Amfortas I guess, but I've kind of forgotten now so it must not have been so especial.
Rather, that accolade is reserved for the muy delicioso Patron Silver which saw us through Act III, a taste of Jenufa to come, and my unexpected detour on the JMZ at 3 in the morning.
Private to L train: F your mom.
2 comments:
You know, when the Lenhoff Parsifal was on its way to San Francisco, friends and I got together for some prep, and that very video was what we watched. Five hours later, we were in shock, and not in a good way: so static! So traditional! We made a lot of bad jokes, and before the performance we were attending, we fortified outselves well.
End of Act I comes along, and we look at each other in amazement, because, well, that production really is on another planet. And, as you note, Parisfal is a terrible opera for video.
Has anyone seen the Hans-Jürgen Syberberg film (on Kultur VHS)? Any good?
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