Speranza
Excerpts from February 17, 2013 'Dark Nights of the Soul in the Kingdom
of the Holy Grail', by A. Tommasini.
In the stage directions for Act I
of “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” set near the sanctuary of the knights of the grail in a mythical
region of MONSALVATO, in medieval Spain, Wagner writes that the scene depicts a FOREST (group of trees) with a
deep-set lake in the background.
This glade should be shady and solemn, he
indicates, but NOT gloomy: “doch nicht duester”.
The Metropolitan Opera’s
new production of “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” which opened on Friday Feb. 15, is
pervasively and intentionally gloomy ("duester" if you must).
In his company debut, the French Canadian
director François Girard, who has done acclaimed work in film, theatre, and
Italian opera, presents “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” in a post-apocalyptic setting.
There is NOT ONE TREE
or tuft of grass, not even a patch of moss.
Instead two barren, sun-baked,
dirt-gray mounds are divided by a river bed with just a trickle of flowing
water, sometimes thick with blood.
In the background, videos depict dark clouds,
swirling mists, and, sometimes, cosmic images of strange solar systems and
ominous planets.
The knights are enduring a spiritual crisis.
Their
leader, Amfortas, is racked with guilt and crippled by a painful wound that will
not heal.
In this production, with sets by Michael Levine and costumes by
T. Van Craenenbroeck, “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” becomes a harrowing, metaphorical
reflection of the knights’ inner doubts and hopelessness.
Wagner’s stage
directions are hardly sacred texts.
And if any work invites a strong
interpretation it is “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” among the most metaphysical, ambiguous and
profound, if INEXPLICABLE, operas (or "mystic dramas") ever written.
But the gloominess of this
production CAN become oppressive.
There is much to admire in Girard’s
thoughtful and intrepid staging, full of striking imagery.
The blocking of the
chorus, extras and dancers is theatrical and elegant.
Carolyn Choa is the
choreographer.
The Met has assembled about the best “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” cast available
today.
The charismatic tenor Jonas Kaufmann sings the heroic title role.
The great bass
René Pape is the veteran knight Gurnemanz, a role he owns.
The baritone
Peter Mattei as Amfortas, in terrific voice, dares to bring out the rashness and
inner desires of this stricken leader.
The conductor Daniele Gatti draws
diaphanous playing from the great Met orchestra and captures the shifting
currents of this richly chromatic and complex score.
Incredibly Gatti
conducts the work, some four and a half hours of music, from memory.
Some do miss
the depth, eerie tension and transcendence that James Levine has brought to this
opera, one of his great achievements.
At times Gatti’s slow tempos let the
long arc of the music grow slack.
But at his best Gatti was inspired, and his
immersion in the piece is palpable.
For all its imaginative directorial
strokes and seriousness, however, this “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” is a downer.
Wagner’s
suffering grail knights may fear they are losing touch with God.
But in most
stagings at least they are connected to nature, and its renewing cycles give
them some hope.
When we meet the wandering, clueless Parsifal, he has just
killed a swan from the nearby lake with his bow and arrow.
Upbraiding Parsifal,
Gurnemanz sings with a mix of chilling reproach and baffled grief.
Authority is built into Pape’s powerful, deep voice and crisp, natural
diction.
Still,
it is impossible to imagine a swan
going anywhere NEAR
the
wasteland shown here.
There are images and elements of this new “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti”
a co-production with Opéra National de Lyon and the Canadian Opera Company, that
will stay with me.
During the orchestra prelude to Act I the audience in the
house can see itself briefly on a black reflective screen.
Soon, behind that
screen, we see people sitting in rows of chairs, looking back at us.
The men
among them rise, take off their shoes and socks, ties and jackets, then form a
tight circle, becoming the grail knights, stand-ins for us in the audience.
It
is a poignantly human image.
The women who had been seated move to the rear
of the stage, where they hover under veils and look on as things unfold.
There
has long been a feminist critique of “Parsifal: dramma mistico in tre atti” since the only female
characters are:
(a) the ageless temptress Kundry, who tries to expiate her sins by
conveying messages for the knights, and
(b) those who serve as agents of the
sorcerer Klingsor, trying to lure stray knights into sin.
But in this production
there are almost ALWAYS women nearby, silent but ready and able to aid in the
resurgence of the community, if only the knights will let them.
Kaufmann
conveys Parsifal’s awkwardness at his first appearance, looking like a
slumped-shouldered and gawky young man.
Could he be the innocent fool who, it
has been prophesied, will come to restore faith to the knights?
Or is he, as
Gurnemanz suspects, just a fool?
Girard’s staging of Act II, set in
Klingsor’s castle, is brilliant.
Even people who loved the lush forest greenery
of Otto Schenk’s traditional 1991 production for the Met, which this one
replaces, tended to concede that the Schenk Act II was silly: a cartoonish and
cluttered depiction of an evil sorcerer’s abode.
Girard gives us a
surreal castle with cliff walls over which blood continually rushes (the work of
the video designer Peter Flaherty).
The characters also slosh through a shallow
pool of blood covering the floor.
In piercing Amfortas’s side with the sacred
spear, which Amfortas always carried, Klingsor caused the wound that will not
heal.
So blood metaphorically permeates his realm.
The strong bass-baritone
Evgeny Nikitin makes a sniveling, nasal-tone Klingsor.
A roster of female
dancers, long hair draping over their faces, all holding spears, stand eerily
still, awaiting the sorcerer Klingsor’s orders.
Klingsor calls them into action as seductive flower
maidens.
But FORGET Wagner’s IMAGES of flowers and finery.
These temptresses are
wily and balletic.
The Met choristers sing this sensual music with alluring
lyricism.
The suggestion in the "dramma mistico" that, in one of her previous
incarnations, Kundry might have been Parsifal’s mother is enhanced here.
The
soprano Katarina Dalayman brings a gleaming voice and sultry phrasing to her
performance and plays Kundry in this scene like an earth mother.
When Kaufmann shows up, he is pounced on by the flower maidens, who tear at his
clothing, leaving him bare chested.
But when Kundry arrives, now a mysterious
beauty, Parsifal instinctively covers his body with his shirt,
sensing something dangerous about this woman’s leering interest.
At 43 Mr.
Kaufmann is in his glory, equally adept in German, Italian and French repertory.
Handsome and limber, he is a natural onstage.
The baritonal colourings of his
sound, his clarion top notes, the blend of virility and tenderness in his
singing, his refined musicianship — all these strengths come together in his
distinctive Parsifal.
Girard draws affecting performances from the
principals in the transfixing final act, when, after years have past, Gurnemanz,
now wiser, and the silent Kundry tend to the returning, beaten-down Parsifal,
anointing his head and ritualistically bathing his feet.
Still, for another long
spell, while hearing some of the most sublime music ever written, we must look
again at those grim, barren mounds from Act I.
The final image, though, does
offer a bit of hope.
The knights, finally joined by the women who had been only
observers, kneel to pray as the chalice is lifted by the wizened Parsifal, now
the leader of the community.
Still, what future is possible given the
environmental desolation?
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