11 November 2001
Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Wagner, "Parsifal"
Daniel Barenboim (conductor), Harry Kupfer (director), Hans Schavernoch
(design)
Amfortas - Andreas Schmidt
Titurel - Kwangchul Youn
Gurnemanz - John Tomlinson
Parsifal - Christian Franz
Klingsor - David Pittman-Jennings
Kundry - Violeta Urmana

BERLIN - On paper, it looked very promising.

The reality, at the Deutsche Staatsoper tonight, was a rather imperfect
"Parsifal."

You expect something great from the Staatskapelle, one of the oldest and
best orchestras, and you usually get it.  And yet, this time, under the
baton of a tired (and possibly ill) Barenboim, Wagner's music (often sent
to the moon by this partnership) just plodded along, slowly, carefully,
for most of the evening.

Vocally, the only member of this promising cast who delivered was Urmana
- vocally, that is.  In singing, she fit the role of Kundry perfectly,
but not dramatically.  Neither convincingly beaten down nor a credible
temptress (and certainly not the startling, bizarre creature one has in
mind for Kundry), Urmana's stable, kindly hausfrau look didn't click at
all.  It warms the heart to hear her sing like an angel (as she did), but
the appearance needs to be closer to the other extremity.

Great fan of the new heldentenor sensation that I am, I found no thrill
tonight in Franz's performance in the title role.  That rare, effortless
edge was still there in the voice, but the awkwardness the role calls for
at the beginning lasted through the work - dramatically and, alas, vocally.
It sounded like a throwaway performance, and the great triumphant moments
at the end of the Act 2 scene with Kundry came and went, hard to notice,
much less to be carried away by them.  In a couple of days, I'll hear Franz
in the title role of "Otello" and I certainly hope the "Exultate!" there
will come across as the Wagnerian equivalent tonight did not.

Schmidt, normally an elegant singer with impeccable diction, gave us
an inaudible Amfortas.  Pittman-Jennings' Klingsor was dry and with more
than a hint of barking.  Tomlinson, on a good evening, can be a definitive
Gurnemanz; this time, he still brought a measure of excitement to the role,
and handled the middle range superbly, but the top and bottom were weak.

The legendary Kupfer-Schavernoch team has become a one-man effort.
Schavernoch still dazzles, but Kupfer is not the same director he was for
so many years at the Komische Oper, in Bayreuth and elsewhere.  It was
exactly a year ago I saw his "Tristan" here and I am still angry with his
abuse and misuse of the singers (mountain climbing during the love duet!),
and while was is not quite as outrageous here, he is not the Kupfer you may
fondly remember.  Inexplicably, he consistently goes against the text:  his
knights are skeptics and troublemakers from the beginning; Parsifal doesn't
take/conquer the Spear - Klingsor throws it away (not even AT Parsifal)
without any action by what should be the conquering hero.  Never mind the
explicit stage direction about making the sign of the Cross to destroy
Klingsor's castle; Kupfer's Parsifal watches impassively, and then exits,
dragging the Spear on the ground:  there is no message or deep structure
here, just sloppiness and disrespect.

The sets are truly eye-popping, taking attention away, yes, but memorably
impressive as well.  Schavernoch 's engineering genius is difficult to
understand - you watch those enormous metal walls moving around, being lit
up from inside in various, mind-bending patterns, and can't figure out the
physics behind them.  Amfortas and the Grail move around on a structure
similar to a boat, except that this one moves in every direction, even
levitates a bit.  The entrance to Klingsor's castle is a huge bank
vault-like door connected to what looks like a jet engine - which takes
off when the castle disappears.  Pop, pop, pop the eyes.

The designer crosses the line to excess in the amazing set for the Flower
Maidens' garden, but it WORKS very well.  On an undulating surface, a dozen
large monitors show the transformation of flowers into women (and back
again) while the unseen chorus sings offstage.  Leave it to Kupfer to give
an already risky concept the shove that kills it.  He directed Parsifal to
hit a monitor when it goes blank, much as one would slap a recalcitrant TV
set.  Up to that point, the bizarre set engages audience attention along
with the text.  When Kupfer interferes, there is laughter, and attention
is no longer on the work - it's on the clever director. . .  which might
have been the reason for that shtick in the first place.  The "old Kupfer"
rarely did that, but apparently, he has grown lazy and vain.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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