Bold and Daring
A new production of Wagner's 'Parsifal',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI
When Brussels'
Théâtre de la Monnaie decided to produce a new Parsifal for the Wagner
bicentenary, its management had a bold and daring idea. Because, in 1882, Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel
('A Festival
Play for the Consecration of the Stage') -- as Wagner called the opera --
was seen as the utmost of musical avant
garde, it was decided to entrust the staging of the opera
to Romeo Castellucci who had made a reputation for himself as top experimental theatre director in
Italy, France
and many other countries.
The Brussels opera house
took a calculated risk because Castellucci also had the reputation, rightly or
wrongly, of being a fiercely anti-clerical atheist. Thus, prima facie, he was not
necessarily suited to fully appreciate the religious
and philosophical implications, and intricacies, of Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel. The production
had its debut in Brussels. Now, it is in Bologna,
where I attended the 11 January 2014 preview.
The cast
has not significantly changed. However, in Brusssels the conductor
was Hartmut Haenchen, a German
well accustomed to Wagner's work and following the school of
thought that makes the tempos
faster than the composer
had in mind.
In Bologna, the conductor is Roberto Abbado,
making his debut with this complex score.
Abbado follows Engelbert Humperdinck's
notebook very closely as he was Wagner's assistant during the preparation of
the 1882 Bayreuth world
premiere and carefully kept track of the composer's desires. For instance, the
first act lasts exactly a hour and forty five minutes (as in Bayreuth in 1882)
and not two hours as in most live performances or
recordings,
with the exception of that conducted by
Boulez
which barely reaches an hour and thirty five minutes. In addition, Abbado is
well versed in conducting Bellini, Donizetti
and Rossini.
Thus the production acquires an Italian 'bel canto' flavor, also
because the protagonist,
Andrew Richards, is a slender lyric tenor
with clear timbre
and a generous volume,
not the usual oversized heldentenor with a register bordering that of a baritone.
Before dealing with the musical aspects, the dramatic
features of the production need to be summarized. No one would expect
Castellucci to set Parsifal in a cardboard Middle Ages setting.
Neither is the action
brought forward to present times as in the staging at London's Royal Opera House
(Stephen Langridge) or in Stuttgart
(Calixto Bieito). The first act is in a primordial forest with lush trees and
full of animals,
the second in a modernist palace at
the beginning of
the twentieth century,
and the third in an empty stage with, in the final moments, the painted plan of
a contemporary town as
backdrop.
Gradually all the population of the town fills the stage and in the last half a
hour, they march slowly towards redemption. At the very end, the protagonist,
now a priest
and the king of the Grail territory, is left alone on the stage whilst off the
set a voice
reminds the full congregation (singers, choruses,
extras, orchestra
and, of course, the audience)
that, through Redemption, human
beings and God Almighty will join each other. Thus, Wagner's key concept
remains central to Castellucci's staging, ie the need to have full awareness of
what sin is, in order to acquire the empathy to help himself and others and be
able to take the path toward redemption.
There are some excellent points in Castellucci's staging. For instance,
in the first act, the celebration of Holy Communion (always difficult to
present in a theatre) is behind a white curtain whilst the choruses are set in
some of the boxes and in the upper tier to provide stereophonic effects and
enrapture the audience. In the second act, however, some of Castellucci's details
require a very deep knowledge of
the libretto
(as well as of its philosophical and religious underpinnings) and others are
excessively sexually explicit. True enough, to go toward Redemption, sin must
be known, but there is no need to show it at its most shocking.
On balance, however, the
bold idea proved to be brilliant
as, after the Brussels debut of the production, well-respected American
reviewer Michael Milensky wrote 'the pit won after all, Wagner's magnetic score
received a magnificent reading'. In Bologna, as already said, it had a more
Italian touch than in the Belgian capital.
To many in the audience, a real discovery was the young
American tenor Andrew Richards. In Brussels, his debut in Parsifal was a coup de théâtre in itself.
In Bologna, he was a Parsifal of pure innocence in the first act and grew
gradually in mature
awareness thereafter. Almost to juxtapose Richard's clear timbre, Anna Larsson
was Kundry, not a dramatic soprano
but an excellent 'alto'.
This made their second act match even more tense, vocally as
well as visually. In the rest of the cast, Gábor Bretz, Detlef Roth and Lucio
Gallo are all veterans in their roles. The choruses deserve special praise, as
the Teatro Comunale chorus was strengthened by a local children's chorus.
The preview audience applauded warmly, but what reception the more
conservative regular subscribers give the production remains to be seen.
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