Opera

http://intermezzo. typepad.com, 06. March 2008
http://intermezzo. typepad.com

...It contrasted stylistically with everything that followed, and was a puzzling way to fill a visual gap that had no need of filling - Hartmut Haenchen did a magnificent job in the pit from the off, bold in his breakneck pacing and fearlessly extreme dynamic shifts - it would have been more than ehough simply to listen......But the final honours of the evening have to go to Hartmut Haenchen. His dense, pacy reading had both weight and excitement, and demonstrated perfectly that when people criticise Parsifal for its supposed dullness, it's the conductor who's at fault, not the composer.