Wagner Parsifal
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Richard Wagner
Genre:
Opera
Label: Red Seal
Magazine Review Date: 8/1999
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 236
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 74321 61950-2
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Parsifal |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Anneliese Rothenberger, Flower Maiden III, Soprano Christa Ludwig, Kundry, Mezzo soprano Eberhard Waechter, Amfortas, Baritone Elisabeth Höngen, Kundry, Mezzo soprano Erich Majkut, Squire III, Tenor Ermanno Lorenzi, Knight I, Tenor Fritz Uhl, Parsifal, Tenor Gerda Scheyrer, Flower Maiden IV, Soprano Gundula Janowitz, Flower Maiden I, Soprano Hans Hotter, Gurnemanz, Bass Herbert von Karajan, Conductor Hilde Gueden, Flower Maiden II, Soprano Hilde Rössel-Majdan, Voice from Above, Contralto (Female alto) Kostas Paskalis, Knight II, Bass Kurt Equiluz, Squire IV, Tenor Liselotte Maikl, Squire I, Soprano Margareta Sjöstedt, Squire II, Soprano Margareta Sjöstedt, Flower Maiden V, Soprano Richard Wagner, Composer Tugomir Franc, Titurel, Bass Vienna State Opera Chorus Vienna State Opera Orchestra Walter Berry, Klingsor, Bass |
Author: Alan Blyth
On April 1st, 1961, the Vienna State Opera gave its first post-war performance of Wagner’s last music drama. It was a long-awaited, auspicious occasion and – to judge by this recording of the occasion by Austrian Radio – a great one, musically speaking (Karajan’s own dark staging wasn’t much liked). Karajan’s Gramophone Award-winning 1981 studio reading on DG has always been admired, but this performance in the theatre has just that much more tension and, with slightly faster tempos, a greater sense of urgency, while all the subtlety and poetry heard in the later rendering is already there. With the Vienna State Opera Orchestra on tremendous form, especially the strings (try the Act 3 Prelude), this is a significant addition not only to the Karajan discography but also to that of the work itself. Its main drawback concerns the recording of the (excellent) chorus. Placed far back by Karajan, it doesn’t match the effect of its counterparts in Karajan’s later set or that on the classic Knappertsbusch of 1962 at Bayreuth.
As far as casts are concerned, splendid as the singing is all-round on Karajan’s DG recording, it is for the most part surpassed here. Moll’s beautifully sung Gurnemanz is no match for Hotter’s in terms of the older singer’s deeper, spiritual feeling for the text, as moving here in its resonances as it is on the Bayreuth set. For the most part in best voice, he sings the role with rich-hued, commanding tones, yet with the detailed insights of an experienced Lieder interpreter, most notably in Act 3. But there’s one oddity: in the opening scene of Act 1, up to track 4, Gurnemanz is unquestionably taken by another, less excellent bass. For some reason not clear at the time of writing, the first part of scene 1 is drawn from another performance, possibly a 1959 reading at Bayreuth with Jerome Hines as Gurnemanz, the conductor Knappertsbusch.
As it happens, Kundry is by intention interpreted by two different singers, a matter of some controversy at the time, but on disc making good sense, pointedly differentiating between what JW once referred to as Kundry serving the Venus and the Mary cults. Veteran Hongen is the distressed, downtrodden figure of Act 1, Act 2 scene 1 and Act 3, Ludwig the youthful Kundry of the Magic Garden scene, a rich-voiced, luxurious piece of singing, marred once or twice by strain at the top, a familiar complaint when the role is cast with a mezzo rather than the intended soprano.
Fritz Uhl, never much admired on disc as Solti’s Tristan, proves an intelligently articulate, sensitive, firm-voiced Parsifal, quite the equal of, if not superior to Hofmann (DG) and Jess Thomas (Philips) though none quite matches Windgassen on the earlier Bayreuth/Knappertsbusch version (Decca). Waechter pours out Amfortas’s torture in a steady stream of well-focused tone. Berry is a suitably nasty and frenzied Klingsor. The Flower Maidens are led by Janowitz, Gueden and Rothenberger, no less.
Inevitably, the orchestra, in mono, hasn’t the richness or amplitude of even the 1962 Bayreuth version, let alone that of Karajan in the studio or – best of recent versions – that under Barenboim, but as an experience of the opera as such, it held me spellbound, a record in every sense of a profoundly satisfying night in Vienna in the Karajan era.'
As far as casts are concerned, splendid as the singing is all-round on Karajan’s DG recording, it is for the most part surpassed here. Moll’s beautifully sung Gurnemanz is no match for Hotter’s in terms of the older singer’s deeper, spiritual feeling for the text, as moving here in its resonances as it is on the Bayreuth set. For the most part in best voice, he sings the role with rich-hued, commanding tones, yet with the detailed insights of an experienced Lieder interpreter, most notably in Act 3. But there’s one oddity: in the opening scene of Act 1, up to track 4, Gurnemanz is unquestionably taken by another, less excellent bass. For some reason not clear at the time of writing, the first part of scene 1 is drawn from another performance, possibly a 1959 reading at Bayreuth with Jerome Hines as Gurnemanz, the conductor Knappertsbusch.
As it happens, Kundry is by intention interpreted by two different singers, a matter of some controversy at the time, but on disc making good sense, pointedly differentiating between what JW once referred to as Kundry serving the Venus
Fritz Uhl, never much admired on disc as Solti’s Tristan, proves an intelligently articulate, sensitive, firm-voiced Parsifal, quite the equal of, if not superior to Hofmann (DG) and Jess Thomas (Philips) though none quite matches Windgassen on the earlier Bayreuth/Knappertsbusch version (Decca). Waechter pours out Amfortas’s torture in a steady stream of well-focused tone. Berry is a suitably nasty and frenzied Klingsor. The Flower Maidens are led by Janowitz, Gueden and Rothenberger, no less.
Inevitably, the orchestra, in mono, hasn’t the richness or amplitude of even the 1962 Bayreuth version, let alone that of Karajan in the studio or – best of recent versions – that under Barenboim, but as an experience of the opera as such, it held me spellbound, a record in every sense of a profoundly satisfying night in Vienna in the Karajan era.'
Wagner Parsifal
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