A scene from Parsifal at The Met Photo: Ken Howard/MetropolitanOpera
Sunday 25 March at 6.00pm on RNZ Concert
Metropolitan Opera 2018 Season
WAGNER: Parsifal
A mystical journey tells the tale of a young man destined to renew a brotherhood of knights charged with guarding the relics of Christ’s last days.
Parsifal........................ Klaus Florian Vogt
Kundry......................... Evelyn Herlitzius
Amfortas..................... Peter Mattei
Klingsor....................... Evgeny Nikitin
Gurnemanz.................. René Pape
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (EBU)
Parsifal takes place in and around the sanctuary of the knights of the Holy Grail, at the mythical location of Monsalvat in Spain, during the Middle Ages. This new Met production places the action in an unspecified, timeless setting.
The score of Parsifal is an extraordinary blend of musical transcendence and dramatic cohesion. The use of bells and offstage choruses are among the unusual effects that create an almost liturgical atmosphere. The magnificent and expansive prelude conveys the important role the orchestra will play in creating a world in which time itself is experienced in an unusual way.
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in rehearsal, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin Photo: Ken Howard/MetropoltanOpera
The vocal parts call for superior breath control to sustain the long melodic lines. Many passages demand a high degree of sheer lyrical beauty, but there are also jarringly dramatic moments, as well. While the score of Parsifal contains endless opportunities for musicological study, perhaps its most notable feature is its approachability. As Wagner’s wife Cosima commented, “It’s all so direct!”
Evelyn Herlitzius as Kundry Photo: Ken Howard/MetropolitanOpera
Wagner’s final opera is a musical journey unlike any other. The composer preferred to call his mature works “music dramas” to distinguish them from “conventional” opera, but he set Parsifal even further apart by naming it a Bühnenweihfestspiel, a “festival play for the consecration of a stage”—the stage in question being that of the Bayreuth Festival House.
