Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Parsifal (1882) [3:54:50]
Amfortas - George London
Titurel - Josef Greindl
Gurnemanz - Ludwig Weber
Parsifal - Ramon Vinay
Klingsor - Hermann Uhde
Kundry - Martha Mödl
Altsolo - Maria von Ilosvay
Gralsritter - Gene Tobin
Gralsritter - Theo Adam
Knappe - Hetty Plümacher
Knappe - Gisela Litz
Knappe - Hugo Kratz
Knappe - Gerhard Stolze
Blume - Rita Streich
Blume - Erika Zimmermann
Blume - Hetty Plümacher
Blume - Anna Tassopoulos
Blume - Gerda Wismar
Blume - Gisela Litz
Choir and Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival/Clemens Krauss
rec. live concert broadcast, Bayreuth Festival 24 July 1953
PRISTINE PACO 043 [3:54:50]
This is one of the few uncut performances of Parsifal with a timing
under four hours, and as such ranks as one of the fastest on record. Karajan
at Vienna in 1961 comes in at about the same time and only Boulez in 1966
(3:49:00) and 1970 (3:39:00) is faster. Whereas Boulez sounds detached, scrambled
and even perfunctory, Krauss never feels rushed or dismissive; he has a real
grasp of the ebb and flow of this piece and is also alive to its poetry. His
more lithe and responsive approach is certainly preferable to the sclerotic
and marmoreal readings of Levine in 1985 and Goodall in 1971, both of whom,
absurdly, take just under four and three quarter hours. To take Knappertsbusch,
as a reasonable comparison, even he generally takes another quarter of an
hour in his various accounts, but another favourite version of mine by Armin
Jordan in 1981 takes just five minutes over four hours. While I concede that
a crude comparison of duration does not necessarily indicate the relative
merits of performances, you will by now have gathered that I am not in favour
of Parsifal as a cure for insomnia and am in favour of a more forward
narrative momentum as opposed to the petrified stasis that passes for spirituality
in some conductors’ interpretations.
Several of the cast in this 1953 performance are the same who sang in Parsifal
the previous two years at Bayreuth but conducted by Knappertsbusch. The big
changes are the substitution of Ramon Vinay for Wolfgang Windgassen in the
title role and the inheritance of the conductor’s baton by Clemens Krauss.
The 1951 broadcast has generally been the more admired, but I would suggest
that the arrival of Vinay represents a marked improvement over his predecessor,
that both Weber and Mödl sing better than in previous performances and
that Krauss’s propulsion is preferable to Knappertsbusch’s reflection
and restraint. I realise that some will disagree with me; what cannot be disputed
though is that Andrew Rose at Pristine has performed another miraculous re-mastering
of the dim mono sound of the original broadcast tapes in the same way that
he recently revitalised Krauss’s Ring. That accomplishment alone
is enough to make this Parsifal preferable to all the other live Knappertsbusch
accounts recorded at Bayreuth throughout the 1950s, regardless of the merits
of the various casts. As Rose notes, this transmission by Bavarian Radio was
made a couple of weeks before Krauss’s Ring so the engineers
would not have had opportunity to fine-tune the location and settings of their
equipment, thus the quality of the tapes is about the same as he had to deal
with in Das Rheingold and they were as such more recessed and afflicted
by whines, hums, hissing and rumbling. He has clearly done a wonderful job
in removing or at least alleviating those defects. Voices occasionally go
off microphone but in general we are now not missing much, I think.
Parsifal is ideally heard in sumptuous stereo sound, but I am tolerant
of live, historical mono, especially when the performance is first class and
the recording is as well refurbished as here by Pristine. However, I return
again and again to two modern recordings, not just to be able to hear the
musical nuances but because in both Kurt Moll is an ideal interpreter of Gurnemanz.
These are the 1980 Kubelik and the 1979/80 Karajan sets. Ludwig Weber has
his moments; he has a big, authoritative, paternal voice and is clearly vastly
experienced in the part, but his frequent unsteadiness and approximate pitching
mean that he cannot really deliver the shiver down the spine that Moll provokes
when he rolls out his huge, smooth black voice in climaxes such as “Gesegnet
sei, Du reiner” through to “die letzte Last entnimm nun seinem
Haupt!”, at the anointing of Parsifal. Robert Lloyd for Jordan is another
bass whose sheer beauty of sound seduces the ear during those long narrative
monologues; I do not really look forward to them with Weber, as when the vocalisation
is less than perfect they can drag. There is no doubt that he understands
the text at a profound level, but his vocal resources are not always able
to produce the effects he is aiming for. Hotter, for all his verbal acuity,
has similar vocal limitations; I’m afraid I do not find his voice especially
beautiful but rather “woofy”.
An unwelcome side-effect of the audio restoration of this performance is that
it reveals just how persistently bronchial the supposedly reverential Bayreuth
audience were that night; I know it’s absurd to feel homicidal towards
an audience member of nearly sixty years ago who has now probably long since
passed away, but there is one I would happily throttle; he invariably saves
his throatiest blasts for the most tender moments. Perhaps his interventions
partially explain why some crucial moments remain earthbound; I don’t
think any other conductor emulates the ecstasy Karajan generates at key points,
yet at other times Krauss manages to create a suitably elevated and weighty
ambience, such as in the Transformation music. The orchestra, some iffy intonation
in the woodwind and flutes apart, is generally more comfortable than in previous
years, having already been put through their paces by Knappertsbusch. The
chorus trained by Wilhelm Pitz is superb. Krauss’s approach is certainly
less internalised than his predecessor but there are benefits to his more
dramatic treatment of the score, especially in Act 2, at Klingsor’s
magic castle, which is charged with evil tension.
Hermann Uhde repeats his nonpareil of a Klingsor; he is to this role what
Gustav Neidlinger was to Alberich - although the latter also sang Klingsor
too. His biting, febrile, almost hysterical characterisation of the magician
is thrillingly voiced and we can well believe that this sinister Klingsor
“laid violent hands upon himself”. He is aptly partnered by Martha
Mödl’s coruscating Kundry. No wonder the Flower Maidens - led by
a lovely Rita Streich - quail before her. She underscores her reputation as
a splendid singing actress; she is wholly uninhibited in how she growls and
yowls to emphasise the sensual and bestial side of Kundry’s nature and
the result is compelling; she is a complete stage animal and here delivers
a seminal performance to stand alongside her Isolde for Karajan a few years
earlier.
Windgassen’s Parsifal was arguably vitiated by the querulous whine in
his voice which compromised his otherwise admirable Tristan and always made
him sound too old. Vinay is an improvement vocally and he sings beautifully,
but there is no denying that his big, dark, baritonal tenor also sounds too
old for the naïve Parsifal, but for different reasons. Nonetheless, he
is in good company here with other mature-voiced Parsifals like Vickers and
Baldelli (the latter in an estimable but cut recording sung in Italian alongside
Callas and Christoff) and he sings as if he is really living Parsifal’s
painful journey towards enlightenment; just listen to the torment in his outburst
"Amfortas! Die Wunde!” It’s a fine, involving performance.
Perhaps one day Jonas Kaufmann, with a voice still boyish yet of Heldentenor
amplitude, will give us the perfect Parsifal?
George London’s bleak, world-weary Amfortas is the best of his various
incarnations, certainly far superior to the “big, black bawl”
of his performance for Knapperstbusch too late in his sadly curtailed career
in 1962. His huge, resonant, rock-solid voice grandly embodies Amfortas’s
grief and anguish, although I still think José Van Dam’s account
for Karajan is both the most beautifully vocalised and the most subtly characterised
on disc. Resident Bayreuth cave-man Josef Greindl is suitably sonorous and
sepulchral as Titurel.
All in all, this a valuable and worthy issue of Wagner's last opera (Gesamtkunstwerk,
Buhnenweihfestspiel?) in sound far superior to any of its previous incarnations.
This quadruple set comes in two double CD cases: the Prologue and Act 1 span
discs one and two, using a natural break to separate the continuous music
into two halves of similar length, with brief fades of background atmosphere
ending and beginning these CDs. Acts 2 and 3 fit in their entirety onto CDs
3 and 4 respectively.
A valuable and worthy issue of Wagner's last opera