Opera

www.bloomberg.com, 03. February 2011
Albino Snake, Bondage Create Lush Visuals in Brussels `Parsifal':
Friedrich Nietzsche, accompanied by a live, wriggling white serpent, greets the audience in a new staging of Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the Brussels opera house.

Romeo Castellucci’s production of Wagner’s 1882 mystical pageant at La Monnaie/De Munt is a radical reading of the composer’s jumble of Christian and pagan symbols. It moves from a pantheistic wood in the first act to a grim sadomasochistic laboratory in the second and a crowd on the march in the third.
The philosopher’s giant portrait disappears -- the snake will return -- and we discover the Knights of the Holy Grail camouflaged as shrubbery in the forest that fills the stage. They await an innocent, pure hero to save their wounded chief. Parsifal (Andrew Richards) stumbles onto the scene, the forest evaporates, and he finds himself contemplating the cosmos.
Castellucci, co-founder of the Italian theater troupe Societas Raffaello Sanzio, designed the decors, costumes and subtly effective lighting for his first ever opera staging. He dispenses with traditional medieval imagery. Forget cloaks, helmets and chalices.
Instead, we get striking, sometimes perplexing imagery in a different setting for each act. The focus on lavish visuals results in a dazzling theatrical experience, yet it crimps the storyline and is likely to rile fervent Wagnerians.
Evil Conductor
Parsifal is less an enlightened savior than a humble everyman on a path of self-discovery. He encounters the evil Klingsor, portrayed as a baton-wielding conductor, in a bleak white space where near-naked women are being tied up and suspended in air.
Parsifal resists advances from the beauty Kundry (Anna Larsson) -- who is escorted by the snake -- in a startling 3-D video scene, and attains a moment of realization while undoing the elaborate bondage of a blonde woman.
Some 200 extras in street clothes jam the stage in the final act. Led by Parsifal, they march on a treadmill as soloists and members of the chorus emerge to sing amid them. The crowd drifts away and Parsifal is left alone, quizzical.
Hartmut Haenchen elicits a smart, analytical performance from the orchestra with an almost Baroque attention to detail and color that drew cheers from the audience.
Richards’s voice sounded a bit thin, although his restraint fit the portrayal of Parsifal as a man in the crowd. Larsson was impressive as Kundry, with vocal mastery that radiated sober power and emotion without thundering. Jan-Hendrik Rootering was a solemn, moving Gurnemanz.
A special mention for the chorus, which plays a key role in the staging while singing eloquently. The curiosity prize goes to Japanese-bondage choreographer Dasniya Sommer.
Jim Ruane
www.bloomberg.com, 06. March 2008
www.bloomberg.com 6.3.2008

Musically, things are more coherent. Waltraud Meier has been singing Kundry for more than 20 years; she still is magnificent, and is a convincing actress as well. Among the men, Evgeny Nikitin's powerful Klingsor stands out.
Franz Josef Selig is a warm, humane Gurnemanz; Victor von Halem, another veteran, a sonorous Titurel. The weak links are Christopher Ventris's tinny Parsifal and Alexander Marco- Buhrmester's hollow Amfortas.
The orchestra is in good form. In the program, Hartmut Haenchen, the conductor, polemicizes against the slow tempi of some of his colleagues, singling out James Levine's 1985 recording of ``Parsifal'' (4 hours and 33 minutes).
With 3 hours and 55 minutes, Haenchen is almost as fast as Pierre Boulez.
Jorg von Uthmann