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Spectator
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Sincere, serious and beautiful: Glyndebourne's Parsifal reviewed
'Here time becomes space,' says Gurnemanz in Act One of Parsifal, and true enough, the end of the new Glyndebourne Parsifal is in its beginning. We don't know that, at first: the sickbed image that's glimpsed during the prelude doesn't resolve itself until the opera's closing scenes. In between, characters appear on stage in multiple forms, at different ages – past and future selves attendant on the present, whatever 'present' means in Monsalvat. Wagner, after all, makes it clear enough that time in the Grail Domain moves in mysterious ways, and his whole musical strategy reinforces that truth. So I can't get too upset about those multiple personas, even though the presence of miming doppelgangers in an opera production is typically one of the most damaging of gimmicks. In this case, though, and in this opera – well, to quote Gurnemanz again: you see, it is not so. The director Jetske Mijnssen manages the interaction between the figures on stage in thoughtful and expressive ways, finding a language for what she evidently sees as the true subject of the drama: the awakening of compassion between a group of damaged, all-too-human characters. The deliberate pace of Wagner's score allows the visual puzzles to disclose their meaning over time. Whatever else this is, it's a sincere and serious attempt to make sense of a work that asks far more questions than it answers. Visually, it's handsome – in Ben Baur's designs the Grail dwells amid the dark wood and sombre drapes of a 19th-century mansion. By Act Three, decay (or if you prefer, liberation) has set in; Kundry (Kristina Stanek) has shed her Victorian frock and an altarpiece of Christ has been turned to the wall.
Spectator
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The glorious elitism of Glyndebourne
There is nowhere in May more beautiful than England with the hawthorn out, the clear light and a thousand shades of green. And there is nowhere more beautiful in England than Glyndebourne, the Sussex opera house between the Downs and the coast. Every visit to the ancestral pile of the Christie family brings joy and we lucky folk who caught the new production of Parsifal were granted double rations. Wagner's final music drama is a first for Glyndebourne and completes a triptych of the Master's late work, following productions of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. As Larkin wrote of Sidney Bechet: 'Oh play that thing!' Music-lovers have been coming to this blessed plot of land outside Lewes since 1934 when John Christie invited three refugees from Germany to establish a shrine to Mozart.
Epoch Times
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Great Music May Surpass Our Understanding
Many things we thought we knew have been found to be false. Things like 'the world is flat,' or 'the sun revolves around the world,' make us a bit more cautious when arriving at a conclusion or passing judgment. Regarding aesthetic matters, one sees that works of art are great mysteries whose qualities and laws are far beyond our knowing. Whether they are good or bad is a more confounding issue still. Beethoven's great mystery, the Ninth Symphony, has been perceived in many ways, as many, in fact, as there have been listeners. It seems sublime to some, monstrous to others. The music historian and novelist Romain Rolland said it was 'an unsurpassed triumph of the human spirit.' Yet, Ludwig Spohr, the German composer and Beethoven's contemporary, called it grotesque, tasteless and trivial. Beethoven in 1804, the year he began work on the Fifth Symphony; detail of a portrait by W.J. Mähler. Public Domain Robert Schumann thought that Richard Wagner 'to put it concisely, is not a good musician,' and that his music was 'often quite amateurish, meaningless and repugnant.' The childlike composer Anton Bruckner, however, upon meeting Wagner, fell on his knees and kissed his hand. The elder composer had to rein in Bruckner during a performance of 'Parsifal,' asking that he not clap so loudly. Bruckner in his turn was called 'a fool and a half' by the rich and powerful Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, but Jean Sibelius, a deeper mind and more generous heart, called him 'the greatest living composer.' A photograph of Johannes Brahms in 1866 by Lucien Mazenod. Public Domain Johannes Brahms was adored by Clara Schumann, who wrote that he was: ' one of those who comes as if straight from God,' while Benjamin Britten had other ideas: 'I play through all Brahms every so often to see if he's as bad as I thought—and usually find him worse.' Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter to a friend that he would like to say 'Mr. Brahms! I think you are a talentless, pretentious, and completely uninspired person.' But the Russian composer himself suffered the assorted slings and arrows of people supposedly 'in the know": His great B flat minor concerto was not well received at its premiere. Nikolai Soloviev, composer, critic and professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, remarked 'Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop.' Related Stories 3/13/2025 4/11/2025 The mighty Tsar Alexander III also had negative views. In his diary, Tchaikovsky wrote 'The Tsar was haughty to me 'Very nice,'!!!!! [sic] he said to me after the rehearsal [of 'Sleeping Beauty']. God bless him.' Igor Stravinsky, however, revered the composer to his last days, and dedicated 'Le Baiser de la fée' to his memory.' Let Each Judge These witnesses for the prosecution and for the defense lead to only one possible verdict: All criticism is precarious, personalized, and subject to change. There is and can be no explanation of why one piece of music pleases one man and displeases another; it is, and will remain, a mystery. A phrase from a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier says, 'We older children grope our way, from dark behind to dark before.' But in our groping, we now and then come upon something more or less solid, something that we might use as a touchstone for what lies beyond pleasing or not pleasing: What is good or bad, truthful or counterfeit. The homestead of John Greenleaf Whittier; this poet create a hospitable home in which to write and think. We have time itself, for example, the judge that decides what will be remembered, and what forgotten; we have what Virginia Woolf described as 'the feeling of being added to.' Most solid of all might be philosopher Immanuel Kant's idea in 'Critique of Judgment,' that 'if the fine arts are not imbued with moral ideals that are common to the whole of mankind, then they can serve only as frivolous entertainments to which people resort to deaden their discontent with themselves.' Let each of us question and judge. Einstein tells us we should never lose a 'holy curiosity.' What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Telegraph
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Glyndebourne's overdue Parsifal is full of unusual decisions
Nothing about Wagner's Parsifal is normal. It certainly isn't a normal opera, though countless directors have tried to make it one. Richard Wagner created his final major work, first performed in 1882, as a 'stage consecration play', casting its narrative of redemption in the form of a long, unfolding ritual. 'Here, time becomes space', as one line in the libretto has it. The usual play of narrative is reworked as Parsifal, an innocent fool, arrives as an outsider in a damaged chivalric community which guards the Holy Grail; this circle is ruled by a king, Amfortas, who has not only lost their Holy Spear to the malevolent sorcerer Klingsor, but been grievously wounded in the process. It has taken Glyndebourne a long time to mount its first Parsifal, which apparently had been the ambition of its founder John Christie back when the festival started in 1934. In its old house, the piece was impossible; even in the fine new theatre, opened in 1994, it's still a tight fit. The ensemble at Wagner's premiere numbered an orchestra of 107, a chorus of 135, and 23 soloists; here, they're reduced to manageable proportions. The grandest effects, such as recorded off-stage bells, are underwhelming, but conductor Robin Ticciati achieves miracles of ever-moving textures from the London Philharmonic in the orchestra pit, never wallowing in the sound but driving it forward and giving it an edge in the act preludes. The sense of momentum and wonder he creates gives the drama its essential underpinning. Director Jetske Mijnssen, highly praised and making her UK debut, mounts a production that's not only suited to the size of the theatre but also offers some startling new takes on the narrative. The innocent Parsifal of Daniel Johansson, light-voiced and not yet fully characterised, arrives in the traditional manner with dead swan in hand, but encounters a defensive crowd of knights who interrupt their Act One finale procession to beat him savagely. They're equally intolerant of Kristina Stanek's 'wild woman' Kundry, whose initial incarnation as a maid bringing in a tea-tray is quite a novelty. But to hear her voice blossom while keeping its incisiveness is one of the great thrills of the evening. The drab marble-pillared hall of Ben Baur's design is essentially a domestic setting. It imposes a dreary uniformity on proceedings, echoed in Gideon Davey's grey costumes, which are Nordic-noir with a visual dash of Munch or Hammershoi, red hair for the maids and the flower maidens. Silent added characters – Parsifal's mother, a younger and older Kundry – stimulate some new perspectives on Wagner's story. It's a nice touch in this male-dominated drama that after Kundry has washed Parsifal's feet, he, Christ-like, washes hers. But Parsifal himself is strangely recessed in the final drama, not helped by a sacred spear no bigger than a penknife. In this reductive setting, amid all the processing, John Tomlinson's veteran ex-king Titurel (still interfering) and John Relyea's implacable elder knight Gurnemanz have to sit round a tiny altar to celebrate the Office as if they were starting a hand of bridge. Relyea doesn't grow older across the acts as he should, but he remains the heroic controlling force and vocal star of the show, a truly remarkable feat. Meanwhile, Audun Iversen's fine wounded and despairing Amfortas seeks, through compassion, a reconciliation with Klingsor, magnificently declaimed by Ryan Speedo Green; and the production ends with an unexpected twist. On this first night, there were cheers for the music, but scattered grumbles at the drama. Either way, Glyndebourne's Parsifal is a gripping evening that will stimulate continuing debate about the real meaning of Wagner's final challenge to the world.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Parsifal review – reconciliation rather than redemption as Wagner staging focuses on family over faith
Even before Monty Python clip-clopped two coconuts together, it was never easy to put Wagner's Parsifal, with its heady combination of Catholic religiosity and Arthurian legend, on stage. Glyndebourne's first ever production of the opera, staged by Jetske Mijnssen, takes a dour approach, bypassing almost all the religious mysticism, and laces the rest of the story firmly into the stays of a Chekhovian family relationship drama. Ben Baur's sombre sets and Gideon Davey's buttoned-up costumes place us in a Catholic community around the time of the opera's premiere, 1882. A quote from the Cain and Abel story, projected during the orchestral prelude, sets the tone. Mijnssen makes Amfortas and Klingsor into long-lost brothers, separated during a previously idyllic childhood when a fit of teenage jealousy over Kundry's affections and his brother's regard made Klingsor lash out with a whittling knife. We see this being acted out by the characters' younger selves while Gurnemanz tells us the backstory in his mammoth Act 1 narration – a velvet-toned tour de force from the bass John Relyea. The knights seem like lesser priests, wearing surplices to take communion before beating up the outsider Parsifal. Kundry is less a wild spirit than a glorified housemaid; the holy spear is a whittling knife, the grail an ordinary chalice – and, as much as the physical hole in his side, Amfortas's rift with his brother is the real wound that refuses to heal. Parsifal's dawning understanding of all this, helped by the vision of his dead mother that Kundry conjures for him, is what passes for heroism here. So there's no faith in this production, and little magic too, save for the inspired touch of having Klingsor's flower maidens as a sinister multitude of Kundrys. It's no longer an opera about redemption – a big, abstract concept – but one about reconciliation, and that's somehow a more slender story than the one Wagner wrote four hours of music for. And yet the production is redeemed by the fact that those hours of listening are so well spent. The conductor Robin Ticciati elicits a gleaming, flowing orchestral performance from the London Philharmonic, one that is supportive of an excellent cast – and hearing them in such an intimate theatre as this is special. Relyea's tireless Gurnemanz is the outstanding performance, but Audun Iversen's Amfortas is profoundly affecting too, alongside Kristina Stanek's rich-toned, lithe-voiced Kundry, Ryan Speedo Green's energised Klingsor and Daniel Johansson's innocent but incisive Parsifal. John Tomlinson is as magnetic as ever as Titurel, a major figure in this production – he's on stage for 80 minutes before he sings a word, and he's riveting. Would Wagner have recognised this as his Parsifal? Maybe not. But it's moving on its own terms, and it sounds wonderful. Until 24 June
