Wagner - Parsifal (Palermo, 2020)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Teatro Massimo, Palermo - 2020

Omer Meir Wellber, Graham Vick, Tómas Tómasson, Alexei Tanovitski, John Relyea, Thomas Gazheli, Julian Hubbard, Catherine Hunold

ARTE Concert

The unique nature of Parsifal as a Good Friday celebration, as a consecration for the stage of Bayreuth and as a spiritual journey in its own right, means that there are many ways of exploring it in a stage setting. There's no one way that works better than another but the most effective are those that simultaneously tap into and draw on the work for its unique source of power while also bringing something to it. When it comes to Graham Vick you have a director who is capable of doing just that in his own way, which is in a manner that relates it to the world we see around us. That's not so easy with a work that delves into the philosophical and spiritual and areas of religious mysticism, but Parsifal is a work that remains relevant for all time. Somehow Vick and conductor Omer Meir Welber manage to get all those essential qualities together in this January 2020 production at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, or at least in some places better than other.

You can never tell if it's a good thing with an opera but in the case of Parsifal it's not exactly a disadvantage that you can't immediately see the direction a production is going to take even when a full hour and a half of Act I has elapsed. If it adheres however to the underlying sentiment of the work then it will hold and move you and Vick certainly manages to make you feel viscerally what the opera is all about. It might sound like an excuse but more than anything this is an opera you need to feel before you can understand it. It's no surprise that Vick uses familiar modern military and war imagery for Act 1 as a way of establishing that the world is in the midst of a deep crisis, one that it is badly in need of a saviour, a healing and renewing force. In Act I, more than anything, you can feel the pain. And it's not just Amfortas who is in agony, but Gurnemanz, the knights of the Grail and ultimately Parsifal too who comes to feel their pain and suffering.

The setting of Act I is visually simple and minimalised. There's a sandy-looking floor of chipboard with a canvas screen behind, giving the impression of a contemporary Middle Eastern military base with troops in army uniform and Kundry wearing a burka. Vick doesn't appear to intend to impose any political commentary, he just uses images that you will be familiar with as a way to get through to the idea of pain and feeling compassion. As such, the progression of Act I is straightforward but there are unusual touches that stand out. The first is the very Christ-like image of Amfortas, which isn't anything new he makes the first striking impression here wearing a brutal crown of thorns. Gurnemanz's story of the spear is played out in shadows on the canvas, showing images of war, victory and submission. The procession of troops lining up for the unveiling of the grail is not ineffective for it being a tin cup, as the symbolism of what it stands for is fully felt in Amfortas shedding a blood sacrifice. More than that, the shedding of blood is also endured by the troops/knights who painfully open up cuts on their arms. Set to Wagner's miraculous score, it's an immensely powerful first Act.

I've made no mention of Parsifal in Act I as he is purposely nondescript here, which is no reflection on Julian Hubbard who sings the role well here, but this is not his time, nor space for that matter. He's not even 'Parsifal' yet. That comes in an Act II which when it opens quickly undercuts any sense of Klingsor being an otherworldly agent of evil and instead depicts him as a very human one. He's a rogue soldier in fatigues, smoking a cigar, dropping his trousers to reveal the bloodstain of his emasculation. You might expect the flowermaidens to also be wearing burkas in Vick's contemporary Middle Eastern setting, and indeed that is how we see the chorus, but initially the maidens are semi-clad in underwear only, looking on as Parsifal cuts his way through their men, later coming to him seductively in coloured wraps.

The strangest scene in Act II however is the appearance of Kundry as a head only, buried under the sand, positioned in the same place as the grail buried under the sand in Act I. Establishing the nature of Kundry is vital in any Parsifal and here she is not so much the temptress and seductress as having a surrogate motherly quality, bringing an Oedipal edge to her encounter with Parsifal. An iconic image of Mary Magdalene opening up from the floor hints at another side, and Kundry as a woman of course has many sides and many incarnations, weaving a web of illusion that Parsifal brings crashing down with his newly gained wisdom and the power that such wisdom conveys on him.

Just as you can't expect Parsifal to come to knowledge and understanding without undergoing the whole laborious process of learning, you can't expect to know what direction Vick is pointing towards until you get to the conclusion of this Palermo production. It is of course a variation on the idea of a return to the paradise, a return to lost innocence, but Graham Vick depicts this persuasively as the need to become like a child again, throwing off the artificial constructs of religion, war and racism that have led to a corruption of true nature of humanity, and aspiring to be something better. It's there in the Easter message of healing, of Death and Resurrection, wiping away the sins of mankind. In Act III the salvation is that the Knights are no longer called upon to fight wars and bleed. They no longer have the spiritual nourishment that the Grail once provided, a gift that was used in a corrupted way to sustain nationalistic pride and wage war. Now it is turned towards healing and compassion.

Again, this is something that has to be fully felt in order to be fully understood. Some of the shadowplay imagery in Act III is consequently quite shocking, the result of a world thrown into chaos, where coldness and horror hold sway. Amfortas, as a leader of men is tired of it all, even more unwilling to continue to wage an endless war; reluctant to give sustenance and countenance to its continuance he topples Titurel out of his coffin. In the healing of the wound, Parsifal opens up a new way guided only by love and compassion. That is the Holy Grail.

In order to feel that the production obviously needs rather more than visual references and cues, and fortunately it's a beautiful interpretation in terms of musical and singing performances. Omer Meir Wellber rushes it along a little fast in places, or maybe I've been listening to too many slow versions recently, but there is a deep flow to the performance, completely Wagnerian, and it supports and helps bring out all those undercurrents that Vick hints at in his direction. Catherine Hunold doesn't quite get under the skin of Kundry the way another interpretation might, but she proves to be a fine replacement for Eva Maria Westbroek, providing some lovely lyrical singing in Act II with Parsifal, but she is also able to bring an edge of chilling drama when it's needed.

I've seen Julian Hubbard a number of times - he's a regular in Irish National Opera productions - but I've never seen him take on anything as big as Parsifal. I believe he also was engaged as the understudy before having to take over the main role and he acquits himself exceptionally well, making it look almost too easy, but also essentially human. The other principal roles are all superb. John Relyea is a fine Gurnemanz, his solemn intoning warm and reassuring, his storytelling compelling, his belief unshakable, his joy at the end overwhelming. Tómas Tómasson is wholly enveloped in the painful distraction of Amfortas, and Alexei Tanovitski's Klingsor is one that shows up the weak foundation of his blustering menace in the face of a greater power.  Strong singing and good characterisation all around, the Good Friday message of the Palermo Parsifal hits home exactly the way it should.

Links: Teatro Massimo Palermo, ARTE Concert

Strauss - Feuersnot (Palermo, 2014 - Blu-ray)

Richard Strauss - Feuersnot

Teatro Massimo, Palermo - 2014

Gabriele Ferro, Emma Dante, Nicola Beller Carbone, Dietrich Henschel, Alex Wawiloff, Rubén Amoretti, Christine Knorren, Chiara Fracasso, Anna Maria Sarra, Michail Ryssov, Nicolò Ceriani, Paolo Battaglia

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

History hasn't been kind to Richard Strauss's first two operas Guntram (1894) and Feuersnot (1901), both of them better known now by reputation than through actual performance. It's common knowledge then that the influence of Wagner was still very present in Strauss's early operas, slavishly so in Guntram, self-consciously in Feuersnot. That would change definitively in the operas that follow, Strauss finding his own voice in Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, but that doesn't mean that there aren't traces and roots of classic Strauss in those earlier works. Feuersnot, in particular, demonstrates much of what would become great in later Strauss operas.

Not that you would have had much of an opportunity to reevaluate those early Strauss operas, with any performances of Guntram and Feuersnot, even in the year of the Richard Strauss centenary, tending to be concert performances. One welcome exception, thankfully recorded and preserved for release on Blu-ray, is the rare staging of Feuersnot at the Teatro Massino in Palermo in 2014. Directed by Emma Dante and conducted by Gabriele Ferro, it's a thoughtful and entertaining production that plays to the strengths of the work, at the same time as it manages to overcome many of the problems that might prevent it being staged more often.

The main problem with staging Feuersnot, I imagine, is that it's hard to know quite how to pitch Strauss's undoubtedly self-indulgent attempt at parody in the work, and actually make it entertaining. It's difficult to judge and pitch the work as a Strauss opera when it is so self-consciously Wagnerian. The danger is that you will think that Strauss is being far too clever for his own good, a bit of a show-off, immodestly writing a work on the model of Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg in which he sets himself up as the "true heir" to Wagner, as well as regarding himself as a bit of a stud. Emma Dante finds a very good way of bringing these ambitions a little more down to earth in her production for the Teatro Massimo.

Feuersnot is a played out as a medieval legend based in a village near Munich. There an apprentice sorcerer, Sir Kunrad, based on Strauss himself, takes his revenge on the people who fail to recognise his talent and his rightful position as the successor to the great Master magician Reichhart Wag'ner, whose great genius also wasn't sufficiently recognised in his own time. Slighted by the people of the village who don't recognise the merit of his powers and his right to express his libidinous urges in public - stealing a kiss from the mayor's daughter Diemut - Kunrad calls a fire famine upon the village during the feast of the Summer Solstice, when the children are preparing to set their celebratory bonfires alight.

Strauss isn't exactly obscure about his intentions in how he sets himself up as the successor to Wagner, but it's hard to know whether he is being either tongue-in-cheek or just immodesty secure of his own talent. Musically, Feuersnot is so cleverly constructed and brilliantly composed that you'd have a hard time denying the evident skill with which Strauss weaves his way through Wagner references and places his own spin on them. That spin, taking Wagner's mythic spiritualism and giving it a more earthy sensuality, could be considered vulgar, but this is entirely in keeping with other Strauss works of this time (Ein Heldenleben in 1898 and Symphonia Domestica in 1903) that would elevate the personal and the domestic to grandiose levels. Or simply find them subjects more worthy and relevant to the general public.

However we regard such behaviour, the brilliance of Strauss' technique and its dramatic application in an opera is plainly evident. It does however lead to a provocative conclusion in Feuersnot that might still be problematic and controversial. Having been subjected to Kunrad's fire famine, the terrified people of the village, and even her own father, urge Diemut to put aside her maidenly honour and get jiggy with Kunrad so that they can rekindle the fire on this Midsummer Night. She and Kunrad do the deed - Strauss bringing a more sensuous physicality to the music than you would find with Wagner - and Diemut, impressed by the prowess of the magician, acknowledges his place as her true master.

The 'legend' of Feuersnot is a thin one, even for a one-act opera (a 'Singgedicht in one act'), with little dramatic drive. Emma Dante however recognises that it's about music and not magic, and brings that not terribly well concealed subtext out in a number of ways. She also attempts to capture the huge variety and dynamic that lies within the score and represent that on the stage with circus acts and dancers to give an impression of constant colour and movement. This can be entertaining and sometimes annoying, but it does certainly bring some liveliness and a certain tongue-in-cheek irreverence that adds to tone and enlivens a staging of work. The final 'fire dance' scene in particular more than justifies the approach, finding a colourful and meaningful way to represent the otherwise problematic ending.

The musical performances all contribute to making this an 'illuminating' production of a rare Strauss opera. Gabriele Ferro underplays the Wagner and emphasises more of the familiar later Strauss characteristics in the score. Nicola Beller Carbone has Wagnerian strength aplenty in the role of Diemut, and although Dietrich Henschel doesn't quite have the force or the volume for a 'heldenbaritone' he sings and plays the role of Kunrad with a mischievous sparkle and verve. None of this is perhaps enough to see Feuersnot reconsidered as canonical Strauss, but it is unquestionably Strauss, and presented in the best possible light here.

The 2014 Teatro Massimo production of Feuersnot is released on Bluray by Arthaus Musik, and it looks and sounds terrific in High Definition. The BD has a 12-minute 'Making Of' that gives some insights into the work and the approach to it, and there is also an informative essay on the work in the enclosed booklet. The disc is region-free, but subtitles are in English, German and Korean only.