Denis Fodor [[log in to unmask]] wrote:

>Mortier is controversial, but whatever he runs makes a splash and draws
>keen interest.  That's what has been lacking so far not only at the
>well-endowed Ruhr Festival but also at the very competent but unexciting
>Paris opera.  (Mortier's successor at Salzburg, Peter Ruzicka, is cutting
>back on the avant-garde exposure that Mortier gave the Festival.)

Unexciting is what opera productions get when they are lost in the Cuban
Crisis of the Cold War.  When I first saw the 1966 Boehm "Tristan und
Isolde" on Video, the Love Szene made a huge impact on me, how so much
could be said with so completely simplified scenery.  Then in that scene
there is only the lovers and the moon.  I had just read more about Wagners
Zuerich years, and in that production there was just Richard Wagner and
Mathilde Wesendonck, nothing else.  I can imagine Wagner had been proud
over how his grandchildren set that production.  However, as with Judith
Gautier, Wagner wanted to accompany his love to Mathilde with flair (and
his wife wasn't too much receptive for neither love nor flair after the
loss of the Dresden kapellmeister-position), and I think Wagner had got
tired in the long race of that sparesome requisita.  I mean, when Parsifal
looks out over the meadow to sing the praise of Natures beauty on the Good
Friday, and the meadow looks like Antarctis being atombombed 47 times, I
think indeed it is "unexciting", in the words most utter sence!  The Good
Friday Meadow shall like much else in Wagner, be connected to Natures
harmony - Wagner was very obsesseed with that, not just in Niebelungen -
and a decorative scenery is needed with smelling flowers and grass
glittering like Silver after the rain, a wonderful panorama....This is
how Parsifal sings about Natures beauty:

    "Wie duenkt mich doch die Aue heut so schoen! -
     Wohl traf ich Wunderblumen an,
     die bis zum haupte suechtig mich umrankten;
     doch sah ich nie so mild und zart
     die Halme, Blueten und Blumen,
     noch duftet' all so kindisch hold
     und sprach so lieblich traut zu mir."

Now THAT is EXCITING!

Mats Norrman
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