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Bayreuth Festival [3] Wagner, Parsifal: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival. Conductor: Daniele Gatti. Bayreuth Festspielhaus, 28.8.2008 (JPr)

Parsifal - End of Act I

The 2008 Bayreuth Festival, the last under the direction of Wolfgang Wagner, the composer’s grandson, closed with Stefan Herheim’s new production of Parsifal. Its première (the season’s opener on 25 July) had been very well received and created high expectations for me. Sadly, they remained unfulfilled.

In the centre of Bayreuth every morning of the Festival,  the Wagner expert and outstanding pianist, Stefan Mickisch, gives an introductory talk to that evening’s opera. His lecture on Parsifal was one of the best I have attended full of musical analysis and piano virtuosity. He had begun by recounting the well-known tale about Knappertsbusch and Wieland Wagner’s famous 1951 production. The conductor when asked how he could conduct a ‘travesty’ that ignored Wagner’s wishes replied that right up until the dress rehearsal he believed he was still to see the proper stage sets. What upset Knappertsbusch most particularly was the absence of the dove that Wagner states appears over Parsifal's head at the end of the opera. ‘The ray of light falls from above, and the Grail glows brightest. From the dome a white dove descends and hovers over Parsifal’s head’ is a version of the original instructions in the score,  and Knappertsbusch claimed that seeing the ‘dove’ inspired him to give better performances. To placate his conductor Wieland reinstated the dove. At the proper moment the bird descended on a string into Knappertsbusch’s view: he  did not realise that string was only long enough for him to see it however or that nobody in the audience could.

There was no dove for the  same transcendent final moments of this sublime work in Christoph Schlingensief’s 2004  Bayreuth Parsifal production either and the production suffered premature eviction from the Green Hill after only four years. There we saw two dead rabbits on a screen above the stage, their rotting bodies intertwined and followed on with the speeded-up decomposition of one of them showing maggots at their work. This was undoubtedly very unsettling and though Schlingensief also overfilled the stage with visual effects left, right and centre so that the eyes never knew where to settle, this production held a certain fascination for me both times that I saw it.  So did his setting of the production in Namibia (apparently) with a great deal of tribal imagery included although this led to a certain amount of not so acceptable ‘black face’ make-up for the singers. When Endrik Wottrich, who sang Parsifal, voiced his concerns about the staging calling it an ‘abomination’, Schlingensief accused him of being a racist who objected to the number of black actors in it. So on the one hand we had the provocateur and on the other the sentimentalist who could so easily be deemed a fascist. This contrast between provocation and sentimentalism/traditionalism is also  explored by Katharina Wagner's much savaged Die Meistersinger production.

Replacing Schlingensief this time, is the young Norwegian stage director, Stefan Herheim, a former cellist and student of Götz Friedrich. He was aided and abetted by Heike Scheele’s sets, Gesine Völlm’s costumes and by Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach’s dramaturgy. Having seen the results of the collaboration I concluded that since this complex and involved staging did not evolve overnight someone must have decided to ditch the Schlingensief production very soon after its première – a response to the row with Wottrich perhaps?

Act II

What Herheim has given us, while undoubtedly a feast for the eyes, also fills the stage almost as Schlingensief did and certainly leads to confusion in Acts I and II; initially as to when and where are we and which character is which. Someone told me that there were more wings to be seen on stage in the first two acts than in Berlin’s Gay Pride event or a Kylie Minogue concert. In Act II there were many other influences at work, including the musical Cabaret for Klingsor’s Marlene Dietrich-inspired MC in tights,  and also the film/musical The Producers complete with its fictional play ‘Springtime for Hitler’ (‘Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!’ are the lyrics). Herheim’s Nazi soldiers march  about on stage in this production amid falling Swastika banners. Another source of influence may be Silviu Purcarete's 2000 Parsifal production for Scottish Opera (if the director or his dramaturg saw it)  with its hospital ward setting -  similar to Act II here at Bayreuth -  and also including cabaret girls and a gender-confused Klingsor.

The kitsch and ambiguities may be deliberate of course, since Herheim raises more questions than he resolves. It is his good fortune that after two uncomfortable acts giving us a mish-mash of three possible alternative narratives he has a much clearer approach to Act III. The earlier  narratives are firstly, Parsifal's birth, upbringing a child and developing as a young man, secondly some reflection on German history through the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century and thirdly, a commentary on the Bayreuth Festival during that time when the audience is shown ‘Hier gilt’s der Kunst’ (Our aim is art) the slogan from Bayreuth’s reopening after WWII.

The exterior, garden and small fountain of Richard Wagner’s Villa Wahnfried are regular features of the sets in some way for all three acts as is Wagner’s grave shown in the area of the prompt box. Act I begins as Herzeleide dies giving birth to Parsifal during the Prelude. Do the black wings worn by Gurnemanz and Kundry reflect those of the  eagle on the national emblem? The setting appears to be a royal court from the nineteenth-century but Ludwig II’s mother did not die in childbirth, nor did the mothers of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Richard Wagner, Siegfried Wagner, Nietzsche or Hitler - so who is the sailor-suited Parsifal supposed to be exactly? Perhaps I am seeking too much coherence of course and in such a philosophical-spiritual-redemptive and musical interpretation, it is an unreasonable expectation. Yet maybe not in circumstances where there is such a specific Wilhelminian time frame. Amfortas is a Jesus figure and the Grail is the traditional goblet or even at the end of Act I the newly born and circumcised (yes this is shown too) Parsifal himself who/which is carried around on display. All of this only barely hints at the rest of what happens on stage

In Act II, we are the early 1930s of Dietrich’s The Blue Angel and the German film industry. Various film projections show the build up to WWI, death and destruction and then the onset of WWII. The villa is now an army hospital with the flower maidens as nurses or cabaret girls who eventually mount the invalids and 'try to cheer them up.' Parsifal, still in sailor suit, is seen jumping down from the Wahnfried balcony. As suggested earlier,  Herheim now cranks the kitsch up to a ridiculous level. I have not mentioned the silly rag-doll-like defeated ‘troops’ thrown about on stage, nor the stage smoke that starts too early or the totally botched transfer of the spear from a member of the Hitler youth to Parsifal. The waving of this ‘spear’ fells the Nazi soldiers - accompanied by much suppressed laughter from some of the audience.

Act III

In Act III we are in the garden of  the ruined Villa Wahnfried  circa 1945. Everything is more conventional and as a result more coherent but I guessed very early on that the spear would reappear from the broken Wahnfried fountain from which water would flow. There is more than a hint of Chéreau in the stage pictures at this point. During the transformation music we get the aforementioned ‘Hier gilt’s der Kunst’ and we are then the post-war Bundestag in Bonn. Amfortas reappears and Parsifal - who looks  like a hippy in this act-  enters like a ‘Second Coming’ Messiah supposedly to attempt to heal a divided nation. A huge mirror becomes the rear wall and reflects the Bayreuth audience underlining Herheim's conclusion that a nation’s future depends on its people. And yes … we do get a small white dove symbol at the top of the proscenium!

The principal casting was drawn from a variety of nations with only two Germans in it - Detlef Roth’s suitably anguished Amfortas, showing him to be a consummate singer-actor and Thomas Jetsako’s Klingsor whose voice lacked true focussed malevolence but whose long legs suited the Dietrich character he was given to play.

Diógenes Randes has the necessary sepulchral tones for Titurel but Kwangchul Youn’s wonderfully well schooled bass and excellent diction lacked the gravitas necessary for Gurnemanz. This role is usually given to a more senior bass who may not retain the flexibility of a more youthful voice but can bring greater insight into delivering Wagner’s text and so command more attention for his long narration. Nevertheless Youn seemed totally at ease with what Herheim asked him to do.

Herheim also gives Kundry a lot to do from the  point of view of pure acting. She appears first as Herzeleide (Parsifal’s mother), then as a  servant girl expelled right after Parsifal’s birth and then - significantly -  as Herzeleide once more when she attempts to seduce her own son. She also assumed other guises during the evening and may even be considered to be yet another version of the Grail in Act I if we accept the ‘grail-as-womb’ idea.  Mihoko Fujimara was adequate to all of the  tasks she was given but her voice lacks any real sensual beauty and her top notes were shrill and effortful.

I think I am correct in saying that this  may be the first time a Brit has sung one of the main headline heldentenor roles at Bayreuth though we have had significant British success in other fachs over recent years. Christopher Ventris had to progress from being an overgrown petulant boy, to developing some maturity (though still looking a bit uncomfortable in the sailor suit) before gaining the necessary redemptive messianic charisma at the end. Vocally he was also at his best during the final moments,  when his ‘Nur eine Waffe taugt’ was ecstatic with a glorious ring to it which concluded a notable Bayreuth debut.

The chorus as always were in superb form whilst in the pit, Daniele Gatti’s approach to his reading right from the Act I Prelude was broad, with an unerring sense of smooth arch and line and immense pauses just a milli-second short of the music stopping entirely. The music remained as radiant and emotional as one would expect at Bayreuth with its always reliable orchestra and I must also mention that the bells that were some of the best I have ever heard. Musing  on the role of the conductor however, I did wonder how free Gatti was to decide on pace of his performance in this production. Surely he must have been restricted by the amount of video material shown and reduced to mere accompanist to the stage director’s wishes at some points. But does this matter actually matter much if true, and as an idle thought, what might Knappertsbusch have made of these developments? He would have liked  the dove of course.

By including the more ‘traditional’ Act III Stefan Herheim ensures that this Parsifal will be acclaimed however. There was no problem with cheering everyone involved on the final night of this 97th Bayreuth Festival, and after the performers' curtain calls,  Wolfgang Wagner came on stage to wave goodbye and received a deserved standing ovation. Within a few days,  the directorship had moved smoothly to the triumvirate of Katharina Wagner, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Christian Thielemann and a new day for Bayreuth had dawned.

Jim Pritchard

Pictures Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH / Enrico Navarath

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