Strauss - Salome (Amsterdam, 2017)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2017

Daniele Gatti, Ivo Van Hove, Malin Byström, Evgeny Nikitin, Lance Ryan, Doris Soffel, Peter Sonn, Hanna Hipp, James Creswell, Roger Smeets

Culturebox - June 2017

It's isn't often obvious to judge what play or opera you are looking at just from a view of the sets alone in an Ivo van Hove production, but the set for the one-act drama of Salome for the Dutch National Opera is unmistakable. It might not be in the obvious Biblical setting, but the tones, contrasts and the basic functional requirements for Strauss's opera, or indeed Wilde's play, are all there. A large frigid moon hangs over the scene where an elegant room bathed in red light set to the back of the stage, and at the front is terrace like a circus arena with a hole at the centre.

Whether it's modern or Biblical, the hole is always more than just an entrance to the cistern where Jokanaan, John the Baptist is imprisoned in Herod's palace. It's a place where Herod and Heriodas want to hide the witness who speaks out about their decadence. It's also a gaping maw of desire, a dark abyss that exerts an irresistible attraction to their daughter Salome, a young woman who has grown up in this house of corruption. Those undercurrents of forbidden lusts are there in Wilde's original 1891 work, a play that still has the capacity to shock. Salome is a play dealing with a taboo subject whose importance still hasn't been fully acknowledged I feel, darker and more daring than the image of corruption and decadence in 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray', both of which now take a back seat to the image of Oscar Wilde as wit represented more often on stage by his Victorian comedies and social satires.

Richard Strauss however clearly recognised the power of the work and its underlying attack on social conformity when he first saw the controversial play in German translation in its first European performances, the original (in French and in English) having been banned in England. It's an outright attack on the hypocrisy of outward respectability covering over darker impulses, and it chimes with a climate of Viennese turn of the century Freudian analysis and exploration of repressed self-destructive impulses and bloodlust festering under a layer of surface respectability; an impulse that would soon be unleashed in the horrors of the Great War.

It was also a time when music was looking for a new expression or outlet for these new modernist views. Strauss retains the post-Wagnerian lush lyrical romanticism and exoticism that reflects the elegant surface of social respectability, but found an extraordinary new musical language to probe beneath the surface, a darker and more violent edge that lies within its unsettling dissonance, sudden shifts of tone and juddering declines and suspensions. As one of the most daring pieces of music written to that point, changing the face of music for a century, or at least pointing the way towards it, it's not only in Strauss's opera that Wilde's Salome is more frequently presented, but it's in it that it really lives.

A staging of the work then should also be radical and have the capacity to shock, or at least find a way that represents the spirit of the original. On the surface, Ivo van Hove's production isn't the most radical, but in the direction of the performers at least, he does find a way of getting to the heart of what remains compelling and shocking about the work. It need hardly be said that the central tension in the drama is between Salome and Jokanaan. How Herod, Herodias and Narraboth interact with Salome is very much contributory to the direction the work does in and its overall impact, but the focus here is very much on the pivotal confrontation between Salome's worldview and the one that Jokanaan both represents and decries.

Salome is the offspring of this corrupt society that hides its true face. In her generation's twisted view of the world, she wants to bend it to satisfy her own desires and at the same time turn her power towards exposing the true nature of this hypocritical society and completely destroy it. Speaking out against that hypocrisy and indulging those desires. This small incidental drama of a Biblical nature sets out to do achieve nothing less than complete annihilation. As Wilde prophetically recognises the fate that would befall him later, such actions and indulgence comes at a cost and ultimately prove to be self-destructive. Somehow Strauss's music carried the same seed of self-destruction in it, a darker abyss that Strauss would soon turn away from himself.

It's asking a lot of a young singer like Malin Byström, but under Ivo van Hove's direction she largely succeeds. There's a youthful innocence there at first, with a dark dirty desire from an abused corrupted childhood that is straining to get out. Jokanaan provides that foil to set herself against and test where the limits lie. She's not sure at first what she wants, but becomes dangerously capable of pushing taboo boundaries. Rejected by Evgeny Nikitin's solemn restrained Jokanaan, Byström handles Salome's transition over from pleading princess to violent murderous intent brilliantly, but it's also underscored well and delivered with jarring intensity from Daniele Gatti in the DNO orchestra pit. She's a dangerous spark waiting to ignite and Herod and her mother supply all the fuel she needs to set the world on fire.

The mechanics of the stage directions are mostly adhered to in Van Hove's production, but with a few varying points of emphasis. The moon gets larger, Narraboth kills himself in full public view looking down at the abyss, not away in some dark corner. Projections play a role, as they often do in the Belgian director's productions. They come into play mainly during the Dance of the Seven Veils, which is danced by Byström, but enhanced to show her dancing not for Herod but Jokanaan. The prophet's head is not delivered on a silver platter, but Jokanaan himself, covered head to foot in gore in a shallow basin that Salome wallows in. He's not entirely dead either, or perhaps moves only in Salome's head, crawling to an illicit and bloody union. If there's any contemporary commentary in Ivo van Hove's production it eludes me, but as an image of how Wilde and Strauss incautiously explored the direction society was going in, the DNO production is immensely powerful.

Links: DNO, Culturebox

Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov (Paris, 2018)

Modest Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov

L’Opéra national de Paris, 2018

Vladimir Jurowski, Ivo van Hove, Ildar Abdrazakov, Evdokia Malevskaya, Ruzan Mantashyan, Alexandra Durseneva, Maxim Paster, Boris Pinkhasovich, Ain Anger, Dmitry Golovnin, Evgeny Nikitin, Peter Bronder, Elena Manistina, Vasily Efimov, Mikhail Timoshenko, Maxim Mikhailov, Luca Sannai

Culturebox - 7 June 2018

There's a sense of the epic in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov that is entirely in keeping with the importance of the period in Russian history and with the nature of the Russian characteristics displayed in it. What is also essential about Mussorgsky's epic vision for the work is its ability not just to capture a sense of intimacy and personal conflict within that historical drama - a common enough characteristic in opera - but how he is able to make those personal sentiments just as grand and epic without losing their human character. Mussorgsky takes human sentiments of sadness, regret, guilt and internal conflict and gives them a Macbeth-like Shakespearean depth and complexity on a scale that befits their importance.

You get a sense of that right from the start in the opera, with the people of Russia calling out in chorus for him to be their new ruler. You also get a sense of how Boris feels about this from his very first line: "My soul grieves". He has a heavy duty to perform to live up to the expectations of the Russian people and do them justice, but there is also a sense of guilt and remorse for the manner in which he has come to power, with rumours already accusing him of murdering the young Tsarevitch Dmitriy from the line of Ivan the Terrible to ascend to the throne himself. An accumulation of misfortune and other forces, including the rise of a Pretender to the throne in Lithuania, turns the people against Godunov, and the combined results strike the Tsar in deeply troubling ways.

Finding a balance of scale between epic and intimate is one matter, but there is also the consideration of which version of Boris Godunov is the most authentic and effective in achieving the necessary impact. Historically it's been the revised 1872 version that has been most commonly used, and understandably so as it contains many extensions to Mussorgsky's brilliant score, but Rimsky-Korsakov's reworking of the original materials has also been popular. Gradually however, we are seeing more productions of the original 1869 version, commonly with a few additions from the revised 1872 version that are deemed too good to be left out.

The 2018 Paris production however, directed by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, takes very much a purist approach by sticking to the complete 1869 original version of Boris Godunov, with no Polish Act nor any of the 1872 additions. It's purist at least in musical terms, but clearly with the controversial Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove involved in the project it's going to be anything but purist as far as the staging goes. That presents an intriguing team that should find a good balance between the grandly epic and the deeper underlying personal sentiments and in many respects both sides of the work are well represented, but the production seems to be more effective for the choice of the stripped down force of the 1869 version than for anything that Jurowski or van Hove bring to the work.

As is usually the case with this director, van Hove relies on a minimal staging, abstract-modern with no period or historical trappings. The use of the space, opened up with back projections of the Russian people and landscapes that are mirrored to the sides, permits a sense of epic scale that can also close the work down to a more intimate level of intensity. A staircase is often present, leading up and also leading down beneath the stage, the symbolism of which is clearly apparent, representing rise and fall, and the separation of the ruling classes from the people. Other scenes are effectively austere, such as between Pimen and Grigoriy in the cell of the monastery in Chudov, needing no further elaboration than two people in near-darkness recounting events in words and divulging the thoughts that run through their minds.

How much of the success in getting this across is down to effective direction, how much is down to the musical performance and how much of this is simply down to the power of the story and Mussorgsky's scoring of it is debatable, but it seems to me that it's Mussorgsky's score that does the bulk of the work. Even then Jurowski's conducting seems rather restrained and unfocussed, although it's hard to judge fairly from an internet stream (I'll be listening again more closely to the live radio broadcast on France Musique this weekend), and yet there's no question that the drama and the dynamic is all there. Likewise Ivo van Hove doesn't seem to bring much to an interpretation of the drama, but it doesn't get in the way of it either.

There are a few stylistic touches applied, but perhaps the only significant twist is at the conclusion. Not only does Boris Godunov finally and dramatically succumb to the pressures of family problems, famine blighting the country and growing instability in his mind over his murder of Dmitriy, but his son dies too at the hand of the Pretender Grigoriy. It's a dark dramatic moment that doubles down on the music that Mussorgsky provides for this finale and, as Boris's son's reign was indeed cut short in deference to the False Dmitriy, it even effectively conveys the suggestion in Mussorgsky's music that the conflict and turmoil of this historical period is far from over.

Ideally you want a Russian cast in Boris Godunov for maximum effectiveness, at least in the principal roles, and there's little to find fault with in team assembled for the Paris production. Ildar Abdrazakov is perhaps a little too smooth and lacking the necessary depth and edge to get across the full conflict of Boris Godunov. He sings the role well, but there's not enough emotion in the voice and too much overplaying in the acting to try to compensate for it. Ain Anger is an appropriately grave austere and occasionally ominous Pimen, there's a similar good balance of restraint and gravity in Maxim Paster's Shuysky, and Vasily Efimov brings vocal colour and some hard truths as the Holy Fool. Lots to enjoy in the singing performances then with strong a strong chorus combining to make a convincing case for the original 1869 version of Boris Godunov becoming the canonical version of this great work.

Links: L’Opéra de Paris, Culturebox

Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel (Munich, 2015 - Webcast)

Sergei Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015

Vladimir Jurowski, Barrie Kosky, Evgeny Nikitin, Svetlana Sozdateleva, Heike Grötzinger, Elena Manistina, Vladimir Galouzine, Kevin Conners, Okka von der Damerau, Igor Tsarkov, Jens Larsen

Staatsoper.TV - 12th December 2015

We are well used to seeing productions from the Bavarian State Opera that are more than a little unconventional, often even seeming to have scant regard for the directions of the libretto. With Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel - a fairly rare work that was first performed only after the composer's death - the Munich opera company seem to have found a work that is truly bizarre enough to fit with what commonly takes place on their stage. Somewhat surprisingly then, especially since it's Barrie Kosky who is given charge of the direction here, the production struggles to match or keep up with the strange happenings that take place in Prokofiev's highly unusual work.

Even by Prokofiev's extravagant operatic range, The Fiery Angel is over-the-top in almost every respect. This is a composer who can plunge into the particularly Russian nature of the worlds of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky with ambitious and dynamic works like War and Peace and The Gambler, but he also reveals a side for the comic and the absurd in his Betrothal in a Monastery and The Love for Three Oranges. Musically and thematically, The Fiery Angel is no less flamboyantly orchestrated for the rhythms, patterns and strange paths that its plot takes. It's not an opera that is memorable for melodies or arias, but every dramatic line and gesture is underscored with complex arrangements and an invigorating punchy delivery.

The music then is perfectly suitable for a work that has few recognisable sentiments in its headlong descent into madness. The person suffering from delusions that take her on a spiraling sequence of hallucinations is a young woman called Renata. She has been discovered by Ruprecht, a rather more worldly-wise man who has found her in his hotel room raving about her childhood encounter with a fiery angel, Madiel. The angel however, becoming aware of Renata's growing carnal lust, abandoned her, but Renata believed that Madiel subsequently took human form in the shape of Count Heinrich. However, he too abandoned her after a year.

Ruprecht is inclined to take advantage of the young woman's delusions in her search for Heinrich/Madiel, her fiery angel, but as he makes the pretence of assisting her by exploring esoteric texts and seeking instruction from Agrippa von Nettesheim, he soon becomes caught up in the strange world that Renata lives in. The line between fantasy and reality (and erotic role-playing) becomes increasingly blurred as they are visited by nightmarish visions of Faust and Mephistopheles, which in turn leads to a kind of religious epiphany when Renata decides to enter a convent only to face trail by the Inquisitor for being possessed by a demon. The whole nightmarish descent into deeper madness is played through here over almost two and quarter hours without an interval. With Vladimir Jurowski conducting the Bayerisches Staatsorchester through Prokofiev's challenging score, it really is a whirlwind ride.

With such a subject and treatment, you would expect that the stage presentation would also be on the extravagant side, particularly as it's the Bayerische Staatsoper and Barrie Kosky is directing. Surprisingly, the opera set for the hotel room looks more like the Marschallin's boudoir in Der Rosenkavalier, with numerous footmen and porters on call at Ruprecht's arrival. With Prokofiev's tone being fairly manic from the start, perhaps Kosky felt it might be a little better to introduce a little bit of normality at this stage by way of contrast to where the opera goes later. That might not be a bad idea if the director were able to establish a more consistent tone that works with the opera, but instead all Kosky has to contrast it with in the latter half of the work is all the familiar camp hallmarks that seem rather too crude to have any bearing on the intent of the opera.

Kosky goes to town of course on the tavern scene, with the obligatory dancing men in drag, and he has Mephistopheles wave his willie around and play suggestively with large sausages. As one of the more unhinged scenes in a fairly bizarre opera, one doesn't expect the director to read anything deep into the irreverent and sexually-charged content, but there are surely more inventive ways of doing it than this. In a work like The Fiery Angel, you're not so much looking for elucidation as something that might engage and hold the audience through the increasingly absurd turn of events. On its own, Prokofiev's difficult score is fascinating in its own right, but at over two hours long and with no intermission (an intermission would only break the mood and the flow), it needs a little more visual engagement. The letterboxing of the stage and Rebecca Ringst's set designs at least manages to inventively keep things moving through a five-act opera, suggesting an interior world more than actual locations.

The uninterrupted two and a quarter length of the work is just as much a challenge for the performers, particularly as Vladimir Jurowski is intent on keeping up the pace and momentum, fairly rattling though the complexities of the score. Taking on most of the singing challenges as Renata and on the stage for pretty much the entire length of the performance, Svetlana Sozdateleva copes incredibly well, even when she has to endure the indignities of Kosky's direction. Such is the commitment and personality that she brings to a difficult character that Sozdateleva makes almost everyone else seem rather dull by comparison - Kevin Conners' delirious Mephistopheles excepted. Evgeny Nikitin consequently, while he sings well, never seems to get to grips with who Ruprecht is or what he wants. Prokofiev, admittedly, doesn't make that easy to determine, but you might have hoped for more from Kosky and the Bayerische Staatsoper.

The next live opera broadcast from the Bayerische Staatsoper is a new production of Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA on 19th March, conducted by Zubin Mehta and directed by Johannes Erath, with an outstanding cast that includes Piotr Beczala, Simon Keenlyside (fingers crossed) and Anja Harteros.


Links: StaatsoperTV

Strauss - Elektra

Richard Strauss - Elektra

Opéra National de Paris, 2013

Philippe Jordan, Robert Carsen, Waltraud Meier, Irène Theorin, Ricarda Merbeth, Kim Begley, Evgeny Nikitin, Miranda Keys

Opéra Bastille - 7 November 2013

Sometimes when you're not really expecting it and with the least likely of works the Paris Opera get it wonderfully right. You'd have thought that the previous night's Aida would have been better suited to the vast stage of the Bastille, but Olivier Py's production ended up filling the stage with everything except that which is essential. Robert Carsen, the other director featuring prominently in this season's programme at the Opéra National de Paris, by way of contrast took a minimalist approach but used the space much more effectively in his new production for Elektra by stripping it bare and exposing the dark intimate heart of the work. With every other element falling into place to support it, this was a marvellous account of a masterwork.

It might not have been much too look at, but it seems that the more sparse the staging, the more powerful the expression of Elektra is. Director Robert Carsen gives us nothing but a bare stage with a few inches of soil or dark sand, surrounded far back by a structure of curved steel walls. Similar to another of Carsen's recent productions, Die Zauberflöte (not opening in Paris until next year, but already seen at Baden Baden), there's a pit at the centre here that gives the impression of a grave. Elektra is all about establishing mood and Carsen adheres to the basic principle of Hugo von Hofmannstahl's stage directions of "a blend of light and night, of darkness and brightness".

The implications of the grave representing death and deep, dark and unpleasant recesses are simple enough in Carsen's staging of Elektra, and it's not difficult either to recognise the significance of the dead naked Agamemnon being disgorged from it at Electra's bidding, raised aloft and borne Christ-like in a procession across the stage. Even its gaping openness creates an unsettling sensation with the viewer whenever anyone wanders too close to it, keeping you slightly on-edge and off-balance - which of course is precisely the impression you ought to be feeling during this work. It's a simple effect, but highly effective.

The other simple but effective element of Carsen's staging is his use of a Greek chorus. Rather than leaving that vast space empty but for a gaping hole (which in any case would have been more than enough with the cast here and the performance of the orchestra under Philippe Jordan), a group of black-robed, pale-faced women - attired in the same fashion as Electra - mirror her movements and highlight her gestures, suggesting that she possesses an extra force that cannot be confined to one person alone, while at the same time showing a fracturing of her personality. Which is a fairly accurate visual depiction of how it is scored with psychological precision by Richard Strauss. What remained to be conveyed by the staging was achieved through the lighting, through shadows cast on the curved walls and through the stage directions - most notably in how the various members of the drama make their entrances and exits. In the case of Clytemnestra, for example, she arrives borne upon a bed and exits dropped down into the grave.

While the stage management and how it reflects upon the characters was evidently carefully considered and had a significant impact on the presentation of this opera, the singing takes up the other major part of the challenge and here the casting was very strong indeed. Waltraud Meier may not be the force she once was, but she is nonetheless one of the great Clytemnestras with a gorgeous timbre and loads of personality. She was certainly more expressive and forceful here than in her performance of the role at Aix earlier this year for Patrice Chéreau. Irène Theorin likewise seemed not only more expressive here than in her performance of Electra in Christof Loy's production at Salzburg, and much more human at the same time, but she also consequently carried the incredibly difficult singing challenges of the role with more authority and conviction.

Between them Theorin and Meier created a formidable team that sustained the considerable singing challenges of the work and the important mother/daughter relationship that lies at the heart of the drama. There were however no weaknesses elsewhere, with Evgeny Nikitin a fine Orestes, Kim Begley making a necessary impression even in the minor role of Aegisthus, and Ricarda Merbeth an outstanding Chrysothemis. Philippe Jordan led the Paris orchestra through this difficult work, highlighting here the surprising lush qualities that can be found in Strauss's sometimes harsh and unsettling score. It was consequently perhaps not as dark and mercilessly punishing as Elektra can be, but taken alongside Carsen's staging, it was pitched perfectly and powerfully to achieve the necessary impact without overwhelming the precision of the dramatic intent.

Wagner - Parsifal

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

The Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2013

Daniele Gatti, François Girard, Jonas Kaufmann, Katarina Dalayman, René Pape, Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, Rúni Brattaberg, Kiera Duffy, Lei Xu, Irene Roberts, Haeran Hong, Katherine Whyte, Heather Johnson, Ryan Speedo Green, Lauren McNeese, Jennifer Forni, Mark Schowalter, Andrew Stenson, Mario Chang, Maria Zifchak

The Met: Live in HD, 2nd March 2013

If it did nothing else The Met's new production of Wagner's Parsifal at least emphatically confirmed a few points.  Firstly, Parsifal is one of the most unique, beautiful and truly spiritual works ever written for the stage.  No great revelation there, but it's good to come out of a performance of this remarkable work feeling that it has been proven.  Secondly, Jonas Kaufmann, singing the title role, is one of the best tenors in the world today - if not actually the very best.  Again, although he has only sung this particular role once before, this won't come as a surprise to anyone.  A third point that many people also already know, is that Parsifal is an incredibly difficult work to stage.  Unfortunately, François Girard's production for the Met's production confirmed that point, and just as emphatically as the other two points were made.

Part of the reason why Parsifal is such a difficult work to stage of course is because it is not an opera in the strictest sense, and not even a Wagnerian music-drama.  Wagner coined a new category for the work for its presentation at Bayreuth, calling it a Bühnenweihfestspiel ("A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"), which seems like a minor distinction (or a rather pompously Wagnerian one, take your pick), but in reality, with its religious subject matter, Parsifal is indeed closer to an oratorio than an opera.  In terms of dramatic action, there's not much that happens over the course of the three acts that take up over four and a half hours running time.  While there may be little in the way of incident, much of the dramatic action conveyed through narration in long recitatives expressing noble sentiments and grand choruses of heavenly praise, Parsifal is nonetheless a remarkably dense work, filled with Christian imagery, Buddhist philosophy and ancient mythology.  The meaning, the mystery and the ambiguity of the work, as well as its sheer beauty, is given its fullest expression however in Wagner's music, the majestic summit of his career, some forty years in the making, completed in 1882 just six months before his death.

In the Met's production however, Daniele Gatti's conducting of the score tended towards a languorous levelling of pace and dynamic towards an enveloping somnolence.  The only dimension that the viewer was likely to enter in this transcendentally spiritual work was that of unconsciousness.  It wasn't dull, it wasn't boring, it was performed and sung magnificently and often with great sensitivity by a wonderful cast - but Parsifal is a work with countless levels of meaning and interpretation and there was no particular vision in either Gatti's solemn even-handed conducting of the work or in Girard's stage production.  Set in a dark vaguely futuristic/timeless post-apocalyptic landscape, the knights dressed in modern black trousers and white shirts instead of armour, there was certainly a concerted effort to remove or at least downplay the traditional imagery and specific Christian elements in the work (in complete contrast to the recent Philipp Stölzl production that I saw at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin) in favour of a more universal spirituality.

This certainly worked for the First Act, reflecting the onerous task of the knights in their defence of the Grail, creating a sense of dark despair that weighs on Gurnemanz over the loss of the Spear, and emphasising the near overwhelming sense of pain that is felt by Amfortas in his eternal suffering from a grave wound that never heals.  The black, cracked and scorched earth is further divided by a stream that has women on one side and knights on the other.  Even Kundry cannot cross this river, which runs red with blood and widens at the end of the act, creating a powerful impression that feels in tune with the tone of the work and the wound of Amfortas, but the symbolism doesn't particular add anything to what is expressed in Wagner's score and libretto, nor does it encourage the viewer to consider the themes of the work anew.  Returning to the same set in Act III - as dark, barren and desolate as it was in Act I - doesn't give any sense of the redemptive force of Parsifal's purity of purpose and sense of healing compassion.

Act II however is at least highly striking and original in its dark imagery of Klingsor and his vampy, ghostly Flower Maidens with spears wading in blood.  Avoiding traditional interpretations of this scene, it at least contrasts with the seductiveness of Wagner's score or could be said to draw out its sinister undercurrents, but it's hard to imagine Parsifal being seduced by either the maidens or Kundry here.  As the most ambiguous figure within the work, there is certainly a case for emphasising Kundry's different roles as a woman in the work - and the symbolism certainly suggested as much - but it's difficult to establish a sense of the character being anything more than all things to all men.  She's a mother with deep reserves of love and compassion, a lover, a whore and a temptress a distraction from the man with purity of purpose.  She doesn't need to be quite so open, but like all the other concepts in this production, it seemed unable to settle for any one interpretation or even unifying concept, leaving all possibilities there to be read as desired.

If there was a lack of vision in the production's visual and conceptual interpretation of the work, it often looked marvellous and at least provided a suitable platform for the singers to bring a much needed sense of humanity and meaning to the words.  The Met's casting was the principal attraction here.  Jonas Kaufmann was a memorable Parsifal, his performance here likely to be the standard that any modern production of Parsifal in the world today is likely to be judged against.  His voice, his delivery and his interpretation made this an almost soulful performance.  We had to really wait until the third act to get the full impact - his Act II duets alongside Katarina Dalayman's Kundry were less effective than those in Act III with René Pape's Gurnemanz - but this was glorious, dreamy singing and deeply persuasive of the real character and meaning of the work that was lacking elsewhere in the production itself.

It helped that Pape was able to reach deeply into his character also with a beautiful soft Wagnerian line free of bluster.  He was strong in his long first Act narration, but unassisted by anything to work with in the production design and concept, it wasn't until the transcendental third Act that he was able to lift this to another level, presumably buoyed by Kaufmann's sensitive performance.  Katarina Dalayman's Kundry was wonderfully sung, but I failed to gain any sense of who or what her character was supposed to be from this production or from her interaction with Kaufmann's Parsifal.  Philipp Stölzl's recent Deutsche Oper production of Parsifal had its flaws certainly, but it at least put Kundry at the centre of the work and Evelyn Herlitzius explored the vocal and emotional range of the character more effectively.  Dalayman's performance was by no means weak however, and there were no weaknesses to be found elsewhere in Peter Mattei's painfully agonised and deeply moving Amfortas, while Evgeny Nikitin brought a sense of real danger and purpose to his Klingsor that avoided all the evil-villain clichés - notwithstanding his being bathed in and wading in blood throughout the second Act.

You could go down as far as Rúni Brattaberg's Titurel the individual Flower Maidens here and you'd still not find a single weak link in the singing performances.  Gatti's conducting, which I found more persuasive divorced from the images when I listened back to the performance on the radio broadcast, the beautiful playing of the work by the Met orchestra and the strong consistent singing of a fine cast, all did at least work hand-in-hand with Girard's direction and Michael Levine's set designs.  Even if it lacked a visionary edge to match Wagner's majestic final testament, this was a mesmeric Parsifal that did justice to one of the greatest works in all of opera.