Opera
Parsifal (Scottish Opera)
Trusting in Wagner
Michael Tanner
• sifal, the first ever north of the border, undertaken and carried through magnifi- cently in the face of gruelling discourage- ments, is not only a testimony to determination, but an invaluable contribu- tion to the understanding of Wagner's most puzzling but profound work. Unlike the deplorable ENO production of last year, this one investigates Wagner's meanings rather than setting out to undermine or (if I knew what the word meant) deconstruct them. There is no disharmony between stage action and text and music, on the contrary, they illuminate one another in a way that shows a rare contemporary trust in Wagner's capacities as a dramatist.
Unfortunately, there is one major respect in which this is not accurate: the first hint of Nature, and the last, to appear in this production comes in Act III, with a tree suspended upside down over the stage, frosted for the first 40 minutes, golden for the Good Friday Music; and a pool among the paving stones. That is not enough. The director/designer, Silviu Purcarete, seems to have taken his cue from Nietzsche's claim that Wagner's characters 'are all five steps from the hospital', indeed to agree with him so enthusiaftically that he has actually put them inside one for the open- ing scene, with the squires and knights lying on austere beds, and Amfortas being wheeled on on a trolley by orderlies.
Act II takes place in a bordello, the chief Flower Maidens reclining before lighted mirrors, Klingsor, in long black coat, as a quite vile master of the proceedings; he even tries an embrace with the madam, Kundry, but of course can't get anything going. Since so much is so wonderful, I don't want to make a fuss, except to say that Nature in its healing or decaying aspects seems to me omnipresent in the first part of both the outer acts.
The need for healing is located, in this account, with hideous precision and inten- sity in the portrayal of Amfortas, acted and sung unnervingly by Matthew Best, all told the most striking interpreter — or incarna- tion — of the role I have ever witnessed. Yet, like every other aspect of the musical side of this production, the effects were achieved by focus rather than volume. The whole bent of the singing and the orches- tral playing was intimate, lyrical, indeed the most lyrical since Kempe in the 1950s. Within that context, Best strained to the limit, as he should, but he didn't step out- side it.
Nonetheless, it was with something near to dread that I anticipated his two big scenes, harrowing in their physical anguish as well as fathomless in their spiritual tor- tures. In Act I his outburst was led up to by a Transformation Music in which, for once, the climaxes were located in exactly the right places, by an orchestra that by then was thoroughly warmed up and able to deliver whatever Richard Armstrong, the inspired conductor, asked of it; and then by an unusually active Titurel, dressed with menacing clerical neatness, who strode up to his son and positively demanded that he elevate the bread and wine: the element of coerciveness which in Act III makes the knights so ghastly was here already quietly sinister, and a masterstroke of production.
The other feat of singing-acting which stunned one was Anne-Marie Owens, singing Kundry in bel canto style, and show- ing that this can be far more affecting, both in eliciting sympathy for her plight, and in leading one to share Parsifal's revulsion, than all the declamatory histrionics with which the role is normally delivered. She made the most of her role in the outer acts too, keeping one's eye on her when she went for vast stretches without singing a word. But in her abjection and malevolence in the Klingsor scene, and then the aston- ishing variety of seduction techniques in the latter half of Act II, she was magnetic, using an economy of gesture and a beauti- ful singing tone to make one feel, much more than usual, what any male up against her had to cope with.
A pity, then, that the Parsifal himself, John Murray, remained a somewhat pallid figure, vocally and dramatically, through- out. Few performers of the part make much impression in Act I, but Murray didn't substantially improve in the subse- quent acts, and often his voice seemed to hit a tired patch and then stage a recovery, notably in his great final scene. Fortunately the Gurnemanz, Manfred Hemm, made up for a lot in his eloquent singing of his sub- lime music. And the small but hyper- charged chorus added to the fervour and intimacy of the whole. There are only five performances all told. Any lover of this work must go to one of them at least.
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