Nov. 10th, 2013 12:17 pm
ERBARMEN! Zu spät--die Knechte kommen!
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muckefuckOkay, so I blew off writing a review of Otello last weekend. (In case it ain't obvious, I haven't been feeling the LiveJournal love much of late.) But I feel I can't get away with doing the same for Parsifal for a couple of reasons: For one, it happened to be opening night. For another, it could very well be the best opera I see at the Lyric this season.
Nuphy and I held our expectations in check because after all it was Davis conducting. So the first thing which needs to be said is that he managed the tempi well. In the past, he's generally taken Wagner too slow. That's never a plus with his operas, but it's much worse for some than others. As Nuphy said at the outset, "A bad Parsifal is a snore." But this wasn't a bad Parsifal by any means. Davis kept it stately, but varied, providing a dollop of energy when it was needed to move things along. There were a couple of sour notes at the beginning (including a cringe-inducing French horn misstep during the overture) but the orchestra got over its shakiness and went on to play heroically.
Speaking of heroes, I regret not getting to my feet for Korean bass Kwangchul Youn. I'm not sure if Gurnemanz has the most lines in this work, but it certainly felt that way. Youn managed to sustain his force throughout three-and-a-half hours of opera, and that really does deserve a standing ovation. (Perhaps I can make it up to him with a mash note.) In contrast, Thomas Hampson was sounding weak as Amfortas (and by that I mean weaker than his characterisation demanded). He's sung very well for us before, but Wagner is obviously in a different league even from late Verdi.
I've got no complaints with Paul Groves as Parsifal, though I can't say he ever really wowed me. He certainly looked the part to a t, which is a plus. Tómas Tómasson looked fantastic as Klingsor and sounded fantastic. On the other end, we had the mismatch between Rúni Brattaberg, who sang Titurel, and the supernumerary who depicted him--the former a husky, jowly Faeroese bear and the latter so frail and emaciated that the papier-mâché prop which replaces him in Act 3 actually looks more robust. Good singing, though, even from well offstage.
But the demands of the role of Kundry really make Daveda Karanas' performance stand out. She has to be by turns feral, slinky, and beatific and be convincing each time. She was. It felt overblown in the first act, but in retrospect it's what's required of one of the more curious roles in grand opera. According to David, I've seen Malfitano in the role but I can't summon up a memory of it. I think I'll remember Karanas.
One thing I certainly won't forget is the staging. Where the previous production was gray and absurd, this one was eye-popping and bold. Impressively, everyone I talked to loved it. Well, I think one holdout needed some convincing about the staging of the Flower Maidens, but the rest of us were swooning. It's a tough line to walk. Grand opera calls for grand gestures (and with Wagner more than most, you want to provide something to arrest attention for the length of an hour-long scene), but you never want to upstage the singing.
A couple of times, I felt they wobbled over the line onto the side of rock concert absurdity. Amfortas' long gaunt face and shaggy locks was already reminiscent of Alice Cooper before he stepped into the spotlight at the edge of the stage and revealed the sparkliness of his fuzzy overcoat. A surfeit of sequins also threatened to undermine Klingsor's menace, so flawlessly established the moment the curtain rises over Act 2.
But these were missteps, meaning that everything else worked. I was a bit dubious about the use of black-clad dancers to embody the sorceror's dark forces until our seatmate the professor suggested symbolic ramifications of the choice which had eluded me. There were very few times when I felt the appearance of non-singers on stage was gratuitous or added nothing. Same story with the props. I could've done without the plexiglass breadboxes in the communion scene, but I loved the conceit of the giant lens for viewing Parsifal's progress into the castle, even if it did cause some confusion with the blocking.
It's not often that I single out the lighting for particular mention in these reviews, but what they managed with an array of gels, stencils, and electrified scenic elements was extraordinary.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mlr said that, from the floor, the neon tubes were a bit overwhelming, but they worked really well for us groundlings in the upper balcony. Even with a rather minimal (albeit impressively mechanised) set, we were never in doubt as to whether we were inside or out, in the woods, in the waste, or in an enchanted garden.
I was worried about recovering in time from my sudden cold, but sleepiness turned out not to be a problem. Instead, distraction came from a completely unexpected source: a stabbing heartburn pain that suddenly appeared at the start of Act 3 and persisted for hours afterward. Even with that in the mix, the evening set a bar that I don't expect to see exceeded for quite a while.
Nuphy and I held our expectations in check because after all it was Davis conducting. So the first thing which needs to be said is that he managed the tempi well. In the past, he's generally taken Wagner too slow. That's never a plus with his operas, but it's much worse for some than others. As Nuphy said at the outset, "A bad Parsifal is a snore." But this wasn't a bad Parsifal by any means. Davis kept it stately, but varied, providing a dollop of energy when it was needed to move things along. There were a couple of sour notes at the beginning (including a cringe-inducing French horn misstep during the overture) but the orchestra got over its shakiness and went on to play heroically.
Speaking of heroes, I regret not getting to my feet for Korean bass Kwangchul Youn. I'm not sure if Gurnemanz has the most lines in this work, but it certainly felt that way. Youn managed to sustain his force throughout three-and-a-half hours of opera, and that really does deserve a standing ovation. (Perhaps I can make it up to him with a mash note.) In contrast, Thomas Hampson was sounding weak as Amfortas (and by that I mean weaker than his characterisation demanded). He's sung very well for us before, but Wagner is obviously in a different league even from late Verdi.
I've got no complaints with Paul Groves as Parsifal, though I can't say he ever really wowed me. He certainly looked the part to a t, which is a plus. Tómas Tómasson looked fantastic as Klingsor and sounded fantastic. On the other end, we had the mismatch between Rúni Brattaberg, who sang Titurel, and the supernumerary who depicted him--the former a husky, jowly Faeroese bear and the latter so frail and emaciated that the papier-mâché prop which replaces him in Act 3 actually looks more robust. Good singing, though, even from well offstage.
But the demands of the role of Kundry really make Daveda Karanas' performance stand out. She has to be by turns feral, slinky, and beatific and be convincing each time. She was. It felt overblown in the first act, but in retrospect it's what's required of one of the more curious roles in grand opera. According to David, I've seen Malfitano in the role but I can't summon up a memory of it. I think I'll remember Karanas.
One thing I certainly won't forget is the staging. Where the previous production was gray and absurd, this one was eye-popping and bold. Impressively, everyone I talked to loved it. Well, I think one holdout needed some convincing about the staging of the Flower Maidens, but the rest of us were swooning. It's a tough line to walk. Grand opera calls for grand gestures (and with Wagner more than most, you want to provide something to arrest attention for the length of an hour-long scene), but you never want to upstage the singing.
A couple of times, I felt they wobbled over the line onto the side of rock concert absurdity. Amfortas' long gaunt face and shaggy locks was already reminiscent of Alice Cooper before he stepped into the spotlight at the edge of the stage and revealed the sparkliness of his fuzzy overcoat. A surfeit of sequins also threatened to undermine Klingsor's menace, so flawlessly established the moment the curtain rises over Act 2.
But these were missteps, meaning that everything else worked. I was a bit dubious about the use of black-clad dancers to embody the sorceror's dark forces until our seatmate the professor suggested symbolic ramifications of the choice which had eluded me. There were very few times when I felt the appearance of non-singers on stage was gratuitous or added nothing. Same story with the props. I could've done without the plexiglass breadboxes in the communion scene, but I loved the conceit of the giant lens for viewing Parsifal's progress into the castle, even if it did cause some confusion with the blocking.
It's not often that I single out the lighting for particular mention in these reviews, but what they managed with an array of gels, stencils, and electrified scenic elements was extraordinary.
mlr said that, from the floor, the neon tubes were a bit overwhelming, but they worked really well for us groundlings in the upper balcony. Even with a rather minimal (albeit impressively mechanised) set, we were never in doubt as to whether we were inside or out, in the woods, in the waste, or in an enchanted garden.I was worried about recovering in time from my sudden cold, but sleepiness turned out not to be a problem. Instead, distraction came from a completely unexpected source: a stabbing heartburn pain that suddenly appeared at the start of Act 3 and persisted for hours afterward. Even with that in the mix, the evening set a bar that I don't expect to see exceeded for quite a while.
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no subject
I'm not going to write my own review, because I broadly agree with what you wrote. Really, a great staging. They managed to work out some of the bugs you mention above after opening night (Hampson was fine, for example). I can understand your seatmate's problem with the flowermaidens - it's hard to be seductive in a burka, but I think the dancing saved it, when those flowy costumes looked like flowers. Really, the dancing was the best I've seen at Lyric. I particularly enjoyed Klingsor's blackclad minions with their twisty, jerky movements.
I was still unpacking some of the symbolism this morning. Oddly, I was a little disappointed on Wagner on one bit. At the beginning of Act 3, Gurnemanz is telling the Black Knight* that "Today is the holiest of days." I remembered his line to Parsifal when they're entering the Grail Castle in Act 1 "Here, space is time" and I thought: I get it, the three acts are Good Friday, Holy Saturday (with the harrowing of Hell), and Easter. Parsifal's journeys across the wasteland (space) are also journeys through time (the three days). Then Gurnemanz mentions it's Good Friday again and all that fell away.
The whole thing is great, though. I see that Karanas is singing in Dialogues of the Carmelites in St. Louis this season. I'll have to mention that to family while I'm down there. They might enjoy it.
*Not sure why he wasn't the Red Knight, which is Percival's usual nomme de guerre.
no subject
Ooh, good catch. You might be right. As I recall, it's not a particularly long opera either.
After Gurnemanz called him "the Black Knight", the old Russian woman who sits two rows back on my right just came out with the word "Nazis" at full conversational volume. Nothing more than that (though she's terrible about chatting sotto voce between curtain and the start of the singing).
no subject