© A. Bofill / Liceu
The chorus sings its last phrase, the mysterious and enigmatic "Erlösung dem Erlöser" (Redemption to the redeemer) while greeting a Parsifal dressed more or less like a fascist dictator. Kundry, the Jewess, does not expire placidly after being baptized but, alarmed by what she sees and, above all, by what she foresees, she packs her bags and goes into exile, the curtain falls. The question is obvious: And now who will redeem us from Parsifal?
Thus ends the Parsifal that German stage director Claus Guth created in 2011 and that now Liceu, co-producer of the work together with the Opernhaus Zürich, has returned to the stage.
The surprising ending proposed by Guth contradicts the literality of the Wagnerian text and this is, at the very least, irritating -if not criminal- for the most extremist sector of Wagnerism, but it is not clear if it contradicts or betrays something else. Questions and doubts crowd in and perhaps have no solution.
If two adult Europeans start talking about Germany, they will begin with Volkswagen and Siemens (to name two clichés), but after two minutes Adolf Hitler will appear and, if they have had some access to culture, after five minutes Wagner, the most influential European artist of the 19th century, will appear. After six minutes they will be talking about the perverse appropriation of his work by Nazism and, if all goes well, ten minutes later they will have arrived at the subject of the ultimate meaning of Parsifal. Since that meaning was probably not even clear to Wagner, the conversation can last for hours after that.
More things to take into account in this case: Wagner's true and proven anti-Semitism; the central idea in all the author's production of redemption through love; the consideration that redemption must always take place on an accepted feeling of guilt, a guilt that must be expiated and the need for a whole generation of Germans to expiate some faults that are not individual but of the nation in order to feel "redeemed".
And even more: opera is currently a marvelous artistic laboratory where creators impose on themselves the limitation of making new art without leaving preexisting and immovable scores and texts.
Finally, we must take into account the awareness of so many German artists that the answer, the explanation and, perhaps, if necessary, the redemption, will not be found outside Germany. The answer, if there is one, lies within and must be found by working on the most German of all artists: Richard Wagner.
This explains the proliferation of highly controversial operatic productions of Wagner's works by German stage directors in recent years, often turning them completely upside down. We think, just to give a few examples, of Peter Konwitschny's controversial version of Lohengrin or Burkhard C. Kosminski's provocative Tannhäuser with gas chambers included.
Parsifal, Gran Teatre del Liceu 2023 (c) A. Bofill
Guth's Parsifal also falls into this group of German productions that explore Wagner in an attempt to explain their own culture and history. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the stage director's approach described at the beginning and which marks the last quarter of an hour of the very long work, what seems indisputable is Guth's monumental dramaturgical work on a very difficult piece. In this sense, this Parsifal is immense because everything has been deeply studied, there is a great direction of actors and everything has been executed millimetrically.
The scenic space does not follow the usual tendency in Parsifal to place it out of space and time, on the contrary, it is very clearly situated in the interwar period in a sanatorium for wounded soldiers.The clear environmental reference is the spa of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. The rotating scenography, by Christian Schmidt which the director himself aptly describes as "an architecture of sculptural character" is of great beauty, is well lit and with its almost incessant movement provides dynamism and vitality to a work of great dramatic staticism in which everything happens with a ceremonial slowness that is often tiring for the audience.
Artistically this Parsifal reached an admirable level. Austrian tenor Nikolai Schukoff has been singing Parsifal for over fifteen years, he owns the character, he dominates it, he makes it evolve very well from the initial "innocent fool" to the final "wise through compassion" and the voice, not especially beautiful but perfectly crafted, responds very well to the demands of the score. Russian soprano Elena Pankratova played Kundry, one of the most exhausting roles of the whole Wagnerian repertoire, the only character, together with Parsifal, that is present in all the acts of an opera that exceeds four hours of duration. Pankratova reserved her voice at the beginning to display all her splendid vocal opulence in the second act. Kundry, fierce and wild in the first act, femme fatale in the second and incarnation of La Magdalena in the third, is one of Wagner's most seductively polyhedric characters. Pankratova could have gone further in this sense.
René Pape was very good in Gurnemanz, another exhausting role, and Matthias Goerne was almost perfect as Amfortas. Goerne's beautifully veiled voice, which envelops you like an embrace, was ideal for Amfortas' sorrowful singing; at some points he could have used a little more vocal power, but on the whole his performance was admirable in all aspects, including the stage.
Veteran Paata Burchuladze did well in the role of Titurel and Evgeny Nikitin was also very good in the role of the evil Klingsor that this production rightly presents as if he were Amfortas' brother, as a counter-figure and a mirror of the wounded king. Amfortas is incurably wounded by a committed sexual sin and Klingsor wounded himself - he castrated himself - in order not to commit a sexual sin.
There is no good Parsifal without a good chorus and Liceu's chorus responded well to the high demands of the score both in the female and male parts.
Finally, it should be emphasized that if musically this Parsifal achieved excellence it was mainly due to the work of Josep Pons in the musical direction. The prelude, the famous and long prelude of Parsifal from which so much is always expected, sounded well but did not have the ineffable magic that every good Wagnerian expects, the orchestra was spiritually cold. Everything soon improved and the orchestral result at the end of the first act, another high point of the score, was already memorable. Pons achieved that intimate, chamber-music sound that characterizes Parsifal.
The conductor Josep Pons received his first musical training in the Monastery of Montserrat where he was an "escolanet" (singing altar boy). Montserrat, near Barcelona, was described by Wilhelm von Humbolt at the beginning of the 19th century as a place where one breathed a great spiritual tranquility; Goethe, picking up Humbolt's idea, came to affirm that human beings can only find happiness and peace in their own inner Montserrat. The nineteenth-century theosophy wanted to see in the monastery of Montserrat the Montsalvat described in the medieval texts of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach that Wagner used for his work and where the composer places the action of the first and third acts of his Parsifal. The association was made, so much so, that Reichsführer Himmler visited the monastery in October 1940. Incredible as it may seem, the Nazi hierarch was looking for the Grail. Perhaps Claus Guth is not so wrong in his proposal. In any case, it is clear that a former “escolanet” of Montserrat had to make, undoubtedly, a great Parsifal.
Xavier Pujol
Barcelona, 25th May 2023
Parsifal by Richard Wagner. Nikolai Schukoff, tenor. Elena Pankratova, soprano. René Pape, bass. Matthias Goerne, baritone. Evgeny Nikitin, bass-baritone. Paata Burchuladze, bass. Orchestra of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Choir of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Càrmina Choir . VEUS - Amics de la Unió Children’s Choir. Josep Pons, conductor. Claus Guth, stage director. Christian Schmidt, scenography and costumes. Jürgen Hoffman, lighting. Volker Michl, choreography. Aglaja Nicolet, restaging. Co-production by Gran Teatre del Liceu and Opernhaus Zürich
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