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GB Opera, March 12, 2013 |
William V.Madison |
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Wagner: Parsifal, Metropolitan Opera, 5 March 2013 |
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Metropolitan Opera:”Parsifal”
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The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Parsifal (opened 15 February), in
cooperation with l’Opéra de Lyon and the Canadian Opera Company, represented
the company debut of François Girard, the Canadian film director (22 Short
Films about Glenn Gould, The Red Violin) with a fruitful history with both
the Lyon and Toronto companies. Somewhat alarmingly, perhaps, Girard also
has a history with the Cirque de Soleil troupe that propelled another
director, Robert Lepage, to the Met with a controversial Ring cycle that has
found far more detractors (including this writer) than admirers. Happily,
Girard’s staging proved to be as spare as Lepage’s was cumbersome, and he
managed to work without acrobats. Envisioning Montsalvat as a flat,
cracked desert plateau like something out of Samuel Beckett, Girard
instantly focuses the spectator on the essentials of this story, and the use
of the simplest modern costumes (white shirts and black trousers for the
barefoot Grail Knights) translates Wagner’s complex mythology into something
that could happen to any of us in the audience. (Indeed, I was wearing a
white shirt and black trousers while I watched.) Even Peter Flaherty’s video
projections, against an upstage screen, only briefly suggest the literal
(cloudy skies) in favor of the abstract or the metaphorical (a lunar
eclipse).
This in itself signaled a radical departure from the Met’s
previous production, by Otto Schenk, a lavishly literal staging that looked
very much like an illustrated fairy tale. (Schenk also produced the Met’s
previous Ring Cycle.) But in virtually every other respect, Girard’s
production resisted radicalism.
A crevice slices across Montsalvat,
the dried-out track of a stream that sometimes flows red with blood and
sometimes splits wide open, a reimagining of Amfortas’ wound. In Act II, set
in a deep gorge, the stage is awash with blood, a shallow pool that
threatens to stain the simple white shifts (sottovesti) of the Flower
Maidens, and in which Klingsor bathes. Act III finds the Grail Knights in
disarray, no longer wearing uniform costumes, and ominous graves have been
dug. The promise of spring’s renewal and the libretto’s direct references to
flowers go unheeded in what is Girard’s only significant lapse. (The
decision, in the same act, to let Kundry carry the coffer in which the Grail
is contained was merely puzzling.) With both the Knights and the Flower
Maidens, Carolyn Choa’s minimalist yet rigorous choreography enhanced the
sense of ritual. Almost continuously onstage in Acts I and III, a silent
chorus of soberly dressed women suggested that the Grail community extended
beyond the Knights.
Musically, this Parsifal could hardly have been
improved. Israeli conductor Asher Fisch, taking over from Daniele Gatti (who
led on opening night and the intervening performances), followed the Italian
maestro’s example with a muscular reading of the score that scarcely
resembled what New Yorkers have heard from the Met’s music director, James
Levine, who effectively owned this opera until he was sidelined by health
problems. In his heyday, Levine stretched out Wagner’s music to a degree
that was (depending on whom you asked) either brilliant or insufferable;
Gatti (heard on the radio broadcast) and Fisch restored it to human
proportions without sacrificing the sublime.
The singers
responded with exquisite singing. Swedish baritone Peter Mattei, as
Amfortas, was the revelation of this production, unfurling a sweetly
burnished legato that somehow heightened his character’s anguish. As
arguably the only sane character in this opera, German bass René Pape
profited most from Thibault Vancraenenbroeck’s contemporary costume designs
and invested Gurnemanz’s every note with nobility; he is quite simply one of
the greatest singing artists alive today. German tenor Jonas
Kaufmann’s rich, baritonal voice and youthful appearance created a Parsifal
whose mature wisdom may have been a foregone conclusion, but it was a
pleasure to hear this role sung with such ease and unforced power.
Filling in for an indisposed Katarina Dalayman, American mezzo-soprano
Michaela Martens revealed comparable musical gifts, shrieking only when
required to do so (unlike so many other Kundrys) and producing a vibrant
warmth perfectly suited to the character’s seductive and maternal sides. As
Klingsor, Russian bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin avoided hammy theatrics (hard
to do when you’re wallowing in blood), but his singing lacked the ideal bite
and power. The Met’s immense chorus, proud exponents of Wagner’s most
demanding scores, surpassed itself on this occasion.
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