One thing I noticed when I heard it again this year, the Solti recording, and following it with the full score, is the trumpet never has the chance to fall asleep. I think he must be busier than in any of the Ring operas. It's surprising.
Yes, this is the reference recording by far, and it fully deserves the accolade. Parsifal remains for me the greatest opera of all, and Knappertsbusch's recording of it remains a superb testament to the work's sublimity. There you go - I've got that out of the way! I think one has to approach the act of experiencing Parsifal quite carefully, and I think this is all to do with allowing for the opera's well-considered sense of pace - similar to experiencing Pelleas et Melisande in some ways. Putting aside the text - and really, the text doesn't bother me in the same way as it does for some - the music is gorgeous, but I think it's something rather more besides - I think it is, well yes, sublime. The end of Act 2 has great momentum, as you imply, but for me the most astonishing passage is the Good Friday music from Act 3, where in part the music seems to anticipate the complex, though differing slow harmonic worlds of Debussy and Delius (yes, it's really there!). Knappertsbusch "owned" Parsifal, and his 1962 recording of it is on balance the best of his recorded traversals of this great masterpiece.
Dave, I find it hilarious, touching and slightly vexing (all at the same time) that a man of your smarts, taste and erudition has so little use for a piece I fell head over heels in love with at first hearing. Ain't life funny? That first hearing was a Met performance, spring of '85, with Jon Vickers, Leonie Rysanek and Kurt Moll participating, Levine conducting. I connected with the music on a molecular level. It grabbed me by the throat, you might say, and has never really let me go. For what it's worth.
At my first performance, also at the MET, the guy next to me died sometime during the third act. That's when I realized that some music sets your pulse racing, and some stops it altogether.
"May I sit through an entire performance of "Parsifal" with nothing to eat if I am not telling you the truth!". --Gregory Ratoff to Rex Harrison (who is playing a conductor shamelessly based on Beecham) in "Unfaithfully Yours".
You're correct Dave, Parsifal is not for everyone. I was at a performance of it some years ago (at the Met) and the fella I was sitting next to had never heard it before: I said to him, "You are about to hear the most wonderous 5 -hour musical meditation ever created. Really, no need to open your eyes or reach for the libretto." It's really true; I've always thought the opera--Parsifal--was just the (alibi) scaffolding Wagner need to write the music--Parsifal--in three glacial movements with a long-winded intro. I've seen it many times and nobody has been able to take the production and liberetto beyond turgid and lifeless. The music is the thing. I like Kna's recordings too; they ring ---as you say---of someone steeped in the lore and DNA of the music. Kna seems to summon Parsifal's sound as if by incantation; his baton work (if you see him conduct) provides the merest suggestion of what comes next because----it's all one big, organic swell, rising and falling. I've heard most of the Parsifal recordings over the years: I started in my youth with Kna's and over the years came to admire Solti's, Leinsdorf and Levine. My favoritie, along with Kna's, however, is Barenboim's and that's because he has the uncanny ability to consistantly summon the most sonically rich sound from Wagner. Thanks Dave for gving Parsifal it due. We faithful Druids applaud you.
I listened over Easter to Levine's Bayreuth recording. It's one of the slowest and I chose it, to keep on better with turning the pages of the score. When I got through it, I listened to the last 20 minutes of the Boulez recording. Much livelier and more transparent.
My first exposure to Parsifal was when I was a small child and my Dad had recordings of the prelude and Good Friday music on 78's from Stokowski...who is the guy who introduced most people of that generation to Wagner's music. In the '60's I learned German spending 3 years on the streets of Germany and interacting with native people. Later when I returned home I took a lot of German classes (much to the chagrin of m engineering counselors) one of which was Wagner as Literature. Having been a classical music aficionado, myself, since the introduction of stereo in 1958 at age 14, I ate up the Wagner class with relish. My excuse for taking all these German classes was to preserve my German which had been so hard won. We studied all 10 of the canonical Wagner operas. But Parsifal was the hardest of all to wrap my mind around. My wife and I went to Bayreuth to see Lohengrin on our honeymoon. I bought a German book in Bayreuth about the operas with the object of studying Parsifal particularly. We saw Parsifal live at the Met on Good Friday in 1971. Sometime in the '70's I had an epiphany of the meaning of it all and have made a tradition of watching videos of the whole thing on Good Friday ever since (without subtitles). But my love for the music started in the 1940's. PS: Kna's recording was the first one I ever owned...first on LP...later on CD...now on my iTunes system.
The line in Act 1 about space and time blows me away every time. He intuited something there decades before anyone had heard of the space-time continuum. Kundry is also Wagner's most complex and mysterious character.
I love Parsifal though it takes stamina to get through the first hour. When I attended several performances in Düsseldorf 95 or 96 while at University in Cologne a friend who came with me asked advice on how best to approach the opera. I suggested not having a couple of beers before the first act to avoid snoring. I remember those performances with slight disappointment as Kurt Moll was supposed to be Gurnemanz, who i loved in the Karajan recording, but he was replaced at each of the performances without explanation. At least I got to see him as King Marke earlier in Cologne. It made Marke's monologue worth listening to.
I attended a Covent Garden production many moons ago under Rattle which, to me rather incongruously, had a stuffed shark above the stage. Never understood why but it kept me awake.
Btw Irene Dalis blew the lid off the roof at Bayreuth when she sang Ortrud that year. The audience broke out in applause after she sang the second act curse and that NEVER happens in that theater. Superb singer!!!!
Christa Ludwig in the Solti gives the most beautiful mesmerising/ unhinged performance of Kundry The Karajan is the most beautiful recording Knappertsbuschs performances speeded up every year at Bayreuth- the last one fairley whips along with a still hypnotic transcendental effect
Of course I have to tell about my roughly 7 hour Parsifal experience. I was at the Met in NY - a Saturday broadcast, I don't remember the cast but Levine was in the pit. And, during that fabulous bit about 2/3 of the way through the first act - when the guys are walking through "the time and space are one" section towards the temple of the holy grail - the turntable broke down! No scene change possible - the chorus was off somewhere in never never land and the performance had to stop. Someone came out and made the appropriate apologetic speech (especially painful for him, I'm sure, because it was a broadcast) and it took a really long time for the talented stage mechanics to fix the thing. Then, finally, it started again. Amfortas only got sicker. A fun way to experience the opera.
I remember that broadcast, have a copy of it, in fact. Peter Allen had a high old time filling in for 30 minutes or so. The day Parsifal became a four act opera.
I have heard other Kna Parsifals and can imagine how the 1962 recording came to be a classic, although the work has fared so well on disc that any reference recording struggles to hold its ground. I like Barenboim, too. My recommendation for newcomers to the work who are suspicious of it and Wagner is Kegel's East German performance. A squeaky Kundry aside, it is well-sung and over in well under four hours.
Good choices. (BB & Kegel) And yes, so many good ones, but Kna' 62 is still terrific, too, and it is MILES ahead of any other Kna' recording. I didn't even know how much, until I had a long comparison section of all the live-from-Bayreuth Parsifals with a colleague and a Wagnerian discographic nut for an article. The sound is better, the orchestra plays better, the singers are as good (Kundry being the only weak spot) as anywhere else, and the tempi are better than any of the Kna rivals.
Absolutely spot on. That 62 Parsifal inspired casting and conducting. But most of all the sound!!! This is the one recording that sounds the closest to how that opera sounds at Bayreuth and that’s important. The luminous sound coming from that covered pit mixes with the voices magically I have been to Bayreuth many times and that recording is how it sounds. Given that the 51 is wonderful especially in the wonderful Pristine remaster
I'm Swiss, so unfortunately I speak and understand, apart from my mother tongue, High German, French, Italian and English (Latin I can only read and recite), just to say I sympathize with you as this has to be right up there with the silliest librettos ever set to music, to the point where I envy and would like to encourage everyone out there who does NOT understand German to happily ignore the libretto and text, and just listen to the music. It's beautiful.
I respect your linguistic skill, but being Swiss it's sort of a given, however I disagree totally about the libretto. What you forget, and the Hurwitz is that with opera composers it is the text, and plot which inspire them to write the music. And even moe the music, the none pure music parts are written tot he words you understand but disdain. Much to easy to say that it has great music and just listen to it-why go to the opera anyway-just hear opera without words-remmeber that. As to what Parsifal means-that is another discussion
@@labienus9968 My background is literature and linguistics, so I'm big on plot and dramatic content in operas, and find it often deplorable how little modern singers still interpret the text compared to great performances of the past where one takes notes. What I am saying is people should not be put off by the occasional silly libretto (where Parsifal may be topping the list). Can't possibly be making a point such as they're all equally fascinating or indeed plausible in terms of being a treasury of words or story-telling.
@@LeonFleisherFan I agree with your first sentence. Great singers of the past, beyond having "great" voices, not only understood that the text meant everything, and how they interpreted it was as much a part of their art as anything else, but that there was significance in the words, and plot. As to the second sentence, it seems a contradiction to the first? The first problem is not being specific. What' is a "silly libretto"-to you. I dont''t find Parsifal ""silly" at all-never, "topping the list." Unconvential. perplexing, mystical, ambiguous, supernatural, spiritual, strange etc.etc. yes-silly not at all. One can't praise the music as if it were composed in a vacuum-even more so when the composer wrote the text, and plot. Clearly that remarkable music came out of it , and is totally a part of the plot and text-and I'm not saying that you're saying it, but when I hear people proclaiming that Parsifal has amazing music, but I hate the plot, or it makes no sense, or I fell asleep during it-totally misses the point.
@@LeonFleisherFan What is great about that wit was that it was spontaneous. A higly intelligent friend of mine cared little for Shakespeare. Why? The answer was nobody speaks in poetry it's not realistic-he'd rather watch a film-that's real .
For me it's easy quite easy to remember the name Klingsor. For some reason I always think of Klingons (Star Trek) every time this name is mentioned. 😅 Anyway, since you mentioned that reference recordings are great get to know better works you don't particularly like but think you should know them, I look forward to the reference recording of the Turangalîla-Symphonie. Having listened to the whole work a number of times during the last few years I couldn't warm up for it quite yet.
I only have two recordings of Parsifal (rather few compared to other works), one being the Bayreuth 1951 with Kna, Windgassen, Módl, Weber, London, Uhde and Van Mill. It is very slow and I love it. Actually, I love any Wagner with Wolfgang Windgassen. The other recording is with Herbert Kegel and the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra on Berlin Classics, on 3 CDs. The first act spills on to the second CD, but other than that it's quite good. I generally trust that label.
Indiana University used to stage its impressive production every couple of years with a cast of faculty and students. The performances were Bayreuth style, with a dinner break after Act I and fanfares from the outdoor balcony to summon us back to the theater. I experienced that production six times and was always deeply moved. Waiting, both in faith and in despair, is at the heart of the work. You have to give yourself to the timelessness in order to enter its special world.
This recording makes me want to go to Bayreuth. The soundscape is so individual. The hood over the pit there does something to the acoustic of the orchestra. As for the opera itself, I once did standing room at Covent Garden. Unfortunately, I neglected Birgit Nilsson’s advice.
It’s a beautiful performance where everything went right. The recent Met production actually got me to sit down and really understand the piece…more how it works (or doesn’t work) dramatically. I’m seeing love for Solti, that one never did it for me, it’s a little too full speed ahead and heavy for my taste. I know the Penguin moved Karajan’s studio performance to the top position when it came out, personally I like Peter Hoffman’s voice so that’s an enjoyable performance too. The one that’s full speed ahead and has all the clarity is Boulez. I guess im the weirdo who loves Boulez’s Wagner in general, but I like the urgency that he brings to it, and I enjoy the singers, even Dame Gwyneth Jones who gets through Kundry as well as anyone. It’s Parsifal for people in a hurry. Goodall….oy…and the Live Levine recording from Bayreuth…i think that one is even slower. Keep the Opera References coming! Thanks Dave!
Many years ago I went to a performance of Parsifal at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. Simon Rattle conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Sitting next to me was the minister of Culture of the Dutch government. Wow. But yeah, half way the first act he fell asleep, with his head nearly at my shoulder. Still wondering: was it because of Wagner, or Simon Rattle... ?🙂
I think the ability to fully appreciate the stories of Wagner's operas, and perhaps that of Parsifal especially, only comes through lived experience of a very specific kind of chronic suffering of the soul that puts one in a very dark and lonely place feeling desperately in need of redemption/salvation. It's not an intellectual thing, as Wagner elitists often make it seem. It's an experience thing and probably a temperament thing also. Nobody is defective or inferior if they just don't get Wagner. I suspect they might just be blessed with a soul very much at peace with itself, in which case I have to admit to envying them somewhat. Your reference recording isn't my favourite. Listening at home I get easily distracted by audience noises. My favourite is Karajan's studio recording. I care more about the music and the story than about whether or not it was recorded in Bayreuth.
The three I turn to the most are the Solti for Christa Ludwig in the second act. the Barenboim on Teldec and the A. Jordan on Erato with Haugland and Y. Minton as the baddies. It served as the soundtrack to the Syberberg film from the early '80s. Most people hate that film a passion. I love it. I also like Ken Russell's composer films like "Mahler".
Just asking out of sincere curiosity, because I see a lot of people with similar “X that I turn most often to”comments and I’m always in awe of how much music people listen to. How often do you listen to Parsifal? How often do you listen these three recordings? How many other recordings do you listen to regularly?
'Parsifal' is my favorite Wagner opera so getting through it a few times a year is natural. I have a couple other recordings that I don't get to including the Karajan I 'imprinted' on. Other than "The Ring", I haven't listened to any Wagner since 2020. I have patterns but I usually have more recordings of the music I listen to the most. I usually don't chime in on things if I only have a single recording as a "go to".
@@tanaraci92 For instance I have 6 recordings of "Wozzeck" and only one if 'Lulu'. I rotate the "Wozzecks" but I have yet to hear anything more compelling than Stratas, /Boulez. It doesn't mean I won't, it just hasn't happened yet.
@tanaraci92 Speaking for myself, once a year for sure. Occasionally, twice in one year if there's something new. I also make a point of hearing Meistersinger once a year, Midsummer, naturally. I rotate recordings and broadcasts, usually depending on what I feel like hearing. Solti this year, Kubelik last year, Kna before that.
And to think, the longest “Parsifal” ever performed at Bayreuth was by Toscanini! I think it was 1932 performance. 5 hours+! Toscanini thought the score was Wagner’s “ most sublime.”
@danpastore1885 1930. But what people don't generally know is that for the second performance, he knocked over 15 minutes off the first performance's time span. As long as the rhythm is firm, Parsifal can go as slow as it wants to. It's almost unique that way. Toscanini's Bayreuth Tristans were also set duration records. Slowest ever.
@@bbailey7818 Yes! You reminded me on that fact! I read in several biographies that people said Toscanini really wasn’t “there.” He was like a priest at an altar. It was reported that when someone entered his dressing room during an intermission, he remarked, “….come un sogno.” Like a dream.
The parts I enjoy from Parsifal are both strictly instrumental, the outstanding overture and the "magic of Good Friday" piece. I don't care for the dialogue and the human voices. But again, I was never an opera person, and only started of them after I had exhausted the instrumental greats.
Oh yes, absolutely and also the reference on recording the Festspielhaus acoustics to best advantage. The orchestra just glows. I guess its appropriate you'd fall asleep since the very first thing Gurnemanz says when the curtain (remember curtains?) goes up is "Forest guardians, sleep guardians more likely." 😴 Maybe it was Wagner's little inside joke. There ARE jokes in Parsifal.
Sitting through Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's four-hour film version of Parsifal in an arthouse cinema around 1982 was possibly the greatest endurance test of my life apart from my ex-marriage. I'm not hating on the music at all, though. Let's be clear.
I find Syberbergs' movie version the best Parsifal ever. On stage there is always an uneasy discrepancy between the marvelous music and the visuals. F.i., the young and agile Parsifal is an obese elderly tenor , the seductress Kundry an equally elderly screaming Primadonna. Not to mention the current postmodern realisations by arty farty directors.
Kubelik could have been a reference in both Parsifal and Meistersinger but there were "contractual problems" and maybe some label politics that got in the way of a wide release. Maybe a topic for further discussion?
I think there are “Reference Singers” for certain rolls…. In this case, for Gurnemanz, it has to be Kurt Moll. I can listen to him all day… Moll should be the reference for so many roles: the Commedatore, Ochs, Osmin, Sarastro… what a great voice!
Strange but true: Pope Francis, a very complicated and inscrutable man, loves Parsifal more than any other piece of music. And this is his personal reference recording.
I have studied the 'myth' of Parsifal from a literary angle for a long time and am a believer but unlike Hitler I am not yet a believer in the opera. Only the prelude works its magic on me.
My first hearing was that same Georg Solti recording. However, in my case, I let it drone on while I attempted to clean my basement. So, I heard it all -- the music IS beautiful. I followed it by listening to James Levine's Metropolitan Opera recording of the entire Ring des Nibelungen. The basement is still a mess. Oh well. I have no idea what any of the plots are about. Except that there are Rhine maidens singing underwater at some point. Right?
The many different ways that Dresden Amen arises as a cadence from the fabric of the music is magical, whereas before I knew the work I thought it was just the same thing all the time. Could be thinking the piece is boring is because of a lack of insight. In the meantime, some Handel may give me an emotional experience that is not so immersive. It's interesting we experience music from differerent times differently of course, but all the past is brought foreward to this day.
It's only my opinion: The best Parsifal is the recording of Hans Knappertsbusch (Teldec, 1951). The great Windgassen. Excuse me for my bad english. Thanks
I have not heard the Kna but will track it down now. I think my wife did wonder if she had made a wise choice in her partner for life when I bought Karajan’s Parsifal and Kleiber’s Tristan in close succession back in the early 1980s, but here we are still together. I have the Karajan and Kubelik recordings these days. About 30 years ago there was a filmed version with Armin Jordan conducting. When it made it to Adelaide I went along in anticipation but walked out half way through. There are passages that I love and play frequently, but it would be more enjoyable at half the length. Who was it that said that Parsifal is the sort of opera that starts at 6 o’clock and after it has been going for three hours you look at you watch and it is 6.20?
@@petterw5318 Uhde also had real charisma, which stood out particularly in demonic and evil roles: Kaspar, Holländer, Telramund even in Verdi's Grand Inquisitor, which lacked depth of tone but not of character. Uhde once pointed out to MET director Rudolf Bing that he could also sing King Philip. Bing responded: "What do I need Uhde as Philip when I can have him as the Grand Inquisitor?"
Hahahaha Dave. You're going to get swamped by Parsifal & Kna kooks! I listened to his 54 performance over Easter & much enjoyed, but think his later efforts more subtle & lighter. I love the swift dynamism of Krauss & in 53 the usual (& peerless) suspects are in better vocal condition.
Standard joke: ‘Parsifal is an opera which begins at 5.00pm, goes on for three hours, then you look at your watch and see that it’s 5.15pm.’ B’dum tish! Yes, Knappertsbusch ‘62 is the reference recording but the stage noises and the coughing in the Prelude make it less than ideal, for me at least. Kubelik’s little known performance from 1980 has the best Parsifal cast ever assembled on record, imo, and it SHOULD be the r.r.but for its’ lack of ‘commercial penetration.’ The Goodall recording is actually pretty good; Solti’s is even better. In fact, most recordings of this work are recommendable, apart from the two conducted by Levine, both of which drag beyond belief.
When someone complains about how boring Parsifal is, I always have to think of what someone once said about Pfitzner's Palestrina: Palestrina is like Parsifal without the jokes. And don't get me wrong, Parsifal is really quite boring. But much of the music is simply heavenly.
@JamesDavidWalley I understand there have been performances of it that dropped the music for Act 2 altogether and did it as a spoken play; and others that dropped the act completely and did only Acts 1 and 3.
Dave, I know Parsifal from the 1951 Knappertbusch/Bayreuth recording on Naxos. Is the 1962 reference so much better that I should get that? (I very rarely listen to Parsifal, and don't need several versions of it)
Like “2001”, I love “Parsifal” but totally get why people don’t like it. It always staggers me that a piece of such profundity was written by a man with such much hate in his heart. If I met Wagner, I’d shake his hand and then…. Well… I leave it to your imagination.
On Good Friday i thought i would give Parsifal another go,third attempt in 30 years!. all the way through...I have the DG Karajan recording which i was told back in the day was the must have...Eh! no.still leaves me cold.Thanks for pointing out the Ref recording i think i will give this a try and see what happens.Maybe i will change my mind.
Well... Parsifal happens to be the first opera I liked listening to the radio, hence the first opera I bought (Solti), and then when possible the first opera I happened to see live. Now I just can't stand the story anymore (then I did not get it to begin with, I suppose). And it's waaaaay too long. I suggest to everyone to check what French writer Céline wrote on other French writer Proust to get my point. I dare not write it down here for fear of seeing my UA-cam account closed for gross indecency, but Céline's comment is fun (altough I do like Proust far more than Parsifal).
Hurray for people with experience and knowledge! I hate Parsifal. It darkens my faith even. Blumenberg with 'work on myth' et al. Knappertsbusch studied Philosophy and it shows. He didn't like rehearsals and his best recordings were live ones after the war
My Knappa Parsifal on Naxos (4-CD set, c. 1952) SUCKS! Aside from the dismal recording quality, the singers seriously fail to acquire delusions of adequacy---> their rhythms AND pitches are severely approximate. Any instrumentalist playing so badly would be horsewhipped within an inch of his / her life, so why are singers given licence to jolly well do what they feel like?
Uuuuhhhh ... Telling an opinion about Wagner, you are brave Dave! :-) ... all the Wagner groupies are going to tell you that you do not have the slightless idea about Wagner (that's what they tell you when you do not think like them). They do not think, they just repeat again and again the same thing (I would call it lethany). They do not accept any new idea or evolution, they just want dogma. Some time ago I considered myself a Wagner fan, but after seeing the dogmatic, unrespectful and old fashioned opinions from them, I stopped to consider it myself... well, I am, but do not say it. I guess it is something similar to Bruckner (horse neighing).
Hahahaha Dave. You're going to get swamped by Parsifal & Kna kooks! I listened to his 54 performance over Easter & much enjoyed, but think his later efforts more subtle & lighter. I love the swift dynamism of Krauss & in 53 the usual (& peerless) suspects are in better vocal condition.
Saw Parsifal twice at Bayreuth and going again in August. It’s quite the experience being in the theatre immersed in the sound swirling around you
Was just at Parsifal in Vienna and the trombone player fell asleep and the tuba player had to wake him up.
LOL😅
no you were not.
One thing I noticed when I heard it again this year, the Solti recording, and following it with the full score, is the trumpet never has the chance to fall asleep. I think he must be busier than in any of the Ring operas. It's surprising.
awesome comment
Yes, this is the reference recording by far, and it fully deserves the accolade. Parsifal remains for me the greatest opera of all, and Knappertsbusch's recording of it remains a superb testament to the work's sublimity. There you go - I've got that out of the way! I think one has to approach the act of experiencing Parsifal quite carefully, and I think this is all to do with allowing for the opera's well-considered sense of pace - similar to experiencing Pelleas et Melisande in some ways. Putting aside the text - and really, the text doesn't bother me in the same way as it does for some - the music is gorgeous, but I think it's something rather more besides - I think it is, well yes, sublime. The end of Act 2 has great momentum, as you imply, but for me the most astonishing passage is the Good Friday music from Act 3, where in part the music seems to anticipate the complex, though differing slow harmonic worlds of Debussy and Delius (yes, it's really there!). Knappertsbusch "owned" Parsifal, and his 1962 recording of it is on balance the best of his recorded traversals of this great masterpiece.
I always liked the story of Kna watching a famous singer writhing about on stage as Amfortas, and shouting "Pull yourself together, man!"
Hot damn, this is my lucky day. First Aida, then Solti, and now Parsifal; I'm in hog heaven. Thank you for these videos. Wesley
Dave, I find it hilarious, touching and slightly vexing (all at the same time) that a man of your smarts, taste and erudition has so little use for a piece I fell head over heels in love with at first hearing. Ain't life funny? That first hearing was a Met performance, spring of '85, with Jon Vickers, Leonie Rysanek and Kurt Moll participating, Levine conducting. I connected with the music on a molecular level. It grabbed me by the throat, you might say, and has never really let me go. For what it's worth.
At my first performance, also at the MET, the guy next to me died sometime during the third act. That's when I realized that some music sets your pulse racing, and some stops it altogether.
@@DavesClassicalGuide 👍
"May I sit through an entire performance of "Parsifal" with nothing to eat if I am not telling you the truth!". --Gregory Ratoff to Rex Harrison (who is playing a conductor shamelessly based on Beecham) in "Unfaithfully Yours".
I love that movie. "Nobody handles Handel like you handle Handel."
@@bbailey7818 Your Delius--delirious!
You're correct Dave, Parsifal is not for everyone. I was at a performance of it some years ago (at the Met) and the fella I was sitting next to had never heard it before: I said to him, "You are about to hear the most wonderous 5 -hour musical meditation ever created. Really, no need to open your eyes or reach for the libretto." It's really true; I've always thought the opera--Parsifal--was just the (alibi) scaffolding Wagner need to write the music--Parsifal--in three glacial movements with a long-winded intro.
I've seen it many times and nobody has been able to take the production and liberetto beyond turgid and lifeless. The music is the thing. I like Kna's recordings too; they ring ---as you say---of someone steeped in the lore and DNA of the music. Kna seems to summon Parsifal's sound as if by incantation; his baton work (if you see him conduct) provides the merest suggestion of what comes next because----it's all one big, organic swell, rising and falling. I've heard most of the Parsifal recordings over the years: I started in my youth with Kna's and over the years came to admire Solti's, Leinsdorf and Levine. My favoritie, along with Kna's, however, is Barenboim's and that's because he has the uncanny ability to consistantly summon the most sonically rich sound from Wagner. Thanks Dave for gving Parsifal it due. We faithful Druids applaud you.
I listened over Easter to Levine's Bayreuth recording. It's one of the slowest and I chose it, to keep on better with turning the pages of the score. When I got through it, I listened to the last 20 minutes of the Boulez recording. Much livelier and more transparent.
My first exposure to Parsifal was when I was a small child and my Dad had recordings of the prelude and Good Friday music on 78's from Stokowski...who is the guy who introduced most people of that generation to Wagner's music. In the '60's I learned German spending 3 years on the streets of Germany and interacting with native people. Later when I returned home I took a lot of German classes (much to the chagrin of m engineering counselors) one of which was Wagner as Literature. Having been a classical music aficionado, myself, since the introduction of stereo in 1958 at age 14, I ate up the Wagner class with relish. My excuse for taking all these German classes was to preserve my German which had been so hard won. We studied all 10 of the canonical Wagner operas. But Parsifal was the hardest of all to wrap my mind around. My wife and I went to Bayreuth to see Lohengrin on our honeymoon. I bought a German book in Bayreuth about the operas with the object of studying Parsifal particularly. We saw Parsifal live at the Met on Good Friday in 1971. Sometime in the '70's I had an epiphany of the meaning of it all and have made a tradition of watching videos of the whole thing on Good Friday ever since (without subtitles). But my love for the music started in the 1940's. PS: Kna's recording was the first one I ever owned...first on LP...later on CD...now on my iTunes system.
The line in Act 1 about space and time blows me away every time. He intuited something there decades before anyone had heard of the space-time continuum.
Kundry is also Wagner's most complex and mysterious character.
@@bbailey7818 "Time becomes space here" is
Have you tried listening to Parsifal with a CPAP machine? It'll prevent snoring, at least.
I love Parsifal though it takes stamina to get through the first hour. When I attended several performances in Düsseldorf 95 or 96 while at University in Cologne a friend who came with me asked advice on how best to approach the opera. I suggested not having a couple of beers before the first act to avoid snoring. I remember those performances with slight disappointment as Kurt Moll was supposed to be Gurnemanz, who i loved in the Karajan recording, but he was replaced at each of the performances without explanation. At least I got to see him as King Marke earlier in Cologne. It made Marke's monologue worth listening to.
I attended a Covent Garden production many moons ago under Rattle which, to me rather incongruously, had a stuffed shark above the stage. Never understood why but it kept me awake.
why? did it have a loud ticking bomb inside? Sounds like a stupid Bond movie anyway.
Btw Irene Dalis blew the lid off the roof at Bayreuth when she sang Ortrud that year. The audience broke out in applause after she sang the second act curse and that NEVER happens in that theater. Superb singer!!!!
And the second best scream in Act 3 after Gwyneth Jones. ;)
Christa Ludwig in the Solti gives the most beautiful mesmerising/ unhinged performance of Kundry
The Karajan is the most beautiful recording
Knappertsbuschs performances speeded up every year at Bayreuth- the last one fairley whips along with a still hypnotic transcendental effect
As someone who sat through Goodall's Parsifal I can confirm it was a long evening. However, the staging of the final act was impressive.
did the damned wife drag you to it?
Of course I have to tell about my roughly 7 hour Parsifal experience. I was at the Met in NY - a Saturday broadcast, I don't remember the cast but Levine was in the pit. And, during that fabulous bit about 2/3 of the way through the first act - when the guys are walking through "the time and space are one" section towards the temple of the holy grail - the turntable broke down! No scene change possible - the chorus was off somewhere in never never land and the performance had to stop. Someone came out and made the appropriate apologetic speech (especially painful for him, I'm sure, because it was a broadcast) and it took a really long time for the talented stage mechanics to fix the thing. Then, finally, it started again. Amfortas only got sicker. A fun way to experience the opera.
I remember that broadcast, have a copy of it, in fact. Peter Allen had a high old time filling in for 30 minutes or so. The day Parsifal became a four act opera.
As a nut who owns the Knappertsbusch Parsifal box set, agreed on this pick!
I have heard other Kna Parsifals and can imagine how the 1962 recording came to be a classic, although the work has fared so well on disc that any reference recording struggles to hold its ground. I like Barenboim, too. My recommendation for newcomers to the work who are suspicious of it and Wagner is Kegel's East German performance. A squeaky Kundry aside, it is well-sung and over in well under four hours.
Good choices. (BB & Kegel) And yes, so many good ones, but Kna' 62 is still terrific, too, and it is MILES ahead of any other Kna' recording. I didn't even know how much, until I had a long comparison section of all the live-from-Bayreuth Parsifals with a colleague and a Wagnerian discographic nut for an article. The sound is better, the orchestra plays better, the singers are as good (Kundry being the only weak spot) as anywhere else, and the tempi are better than any of the Kna rivals.
Absolutely spot on. That 62 Parsifal inspired casting and conducting. But most of all the sound!!! This is the one recording that sounds the closest to how that opera sounds at Bayreuth and that’s important. The luminous sound coming from that covered pit mixes with the voices magically I have been to Bayreuth many times and that recording is how it sounds. Given that the 51 is wonderful especially in the wonderful Pristine remaster
I'm Swiss, so unfortunately I speak and understand, apart from my mother tongue, High German, French, Italian and English (Latin I can only read and recite), just to say I sympathize with you as this has to be right up there with the silliest librettos ever set to music, to the point where I envy and would like to encourage everyone out there who does NOT understand German to happily ignore the libretto and text, and just listen to the music. It's beautiful.
I respect your linguistic skill, but being Swiss it's sort of a given, however I disagree totally about the libretto. What you forget, and the Hurwitz is that with opera composers it is the text, and plot which inspire them to write the music. And even moe the music, the none pure music parts are written tot he words you understand but disdain. Much to easy to say that it has great music and just listen to it-why go to the opera anyway-just hear opera without words-remmeber that. As to what Parsifal means-that is another discussion
@@labienus9968 My background is literature and linguistics, so I'm big on plot and dramatic content in operas, and find it often deplorable how little modern singers still interpret the text compared to great performances of the past where one takes notes. What I am saying is people should not be put off by the occasional silly libretto (where Parsifal may be topping the list). Can't possibly be making a point such as they're all equally fascinating or indeed plausible in terms of being a treasury of words or story-telling.
@@LeonFleisherFan I agree with your first sentence. Great singers of the past, beyond having "great" voices, not only understood that the text meant everything, and how they interpreted it was as much a part of their art as anything else, but that there was significance in the words, and plot. As to the second sentence, it seems a contradiction to the first?
The first problem is not being specific. What' is a "silly libretto"-to you. I dont''t find Parsifal ""silly" at all-never, "topping the list." Unconvential. perplexing, mystical, ambiguous, supernatural, spiritual, strange etc.etc. yes-silly not at all. One can't praise the music as if it were composed in a vacuum-even more so when the composer wrote the text, and plot. Clearly that remarkable music came out of it , and is totally a part of the plot and text-and I'm not saying that you're saying it, but when I hear people proclaiming that Parsifal has amazing music, but I hate the plot, or it makes no sense, or I fell asleep during it-totally misses the point.
@@labienus9968 Spiritual and mystical - I'll have to think of that next time I'm at the station waiting for the next swan… 😅
@@LeonFleisherFan What is great about that wit was that it was spontaneous.
A higly intelligent friend of mine cared little for Shakespeare. Why? The answer was nobody speaks in poetry it's not realistic-he'd rather watch a film-that's real .
For me it's easy quite easy to remember the name Klingsor. For some reason I always think of Klingons (Star Trek) every time this name is mentioned.
😅
Anyway, since you mentioned that reference recordings are great get to know better works you don't particularly like but think you should know them, I look forward to the reference recording of the Turangalîla-Symphonie. Having listened to the whole work a number of times during the last few years I couldn't warm up for it quite yet.
I only have two recordings of Parsifal (rather few compared to other works), one being the Bayreuth 1951 with Kna, Windgassen, Módl, Weber, London, Uhde and Van Mill. It is very slow and I love it. Actually, I love any Wagner with Wolfgang Windgassen. The other recording is with Herbert Kegel and the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra on Berlin Classics, on 3 CDs. The first act spills on to the second CD, but other than that it's quite good. I generally trust that label.
Indiana University used to stage its impressive production every couple of years with a cast of faculty and students. The performances were Bayreuth style, with a dinner break after Act I and fanfares from the outdoor balcony to summon us back to the theater. I experienced that production six times and was always deeply moved. Waiting, both in faith and in despair, is at the heart of the work. You have to give yourself to the timelessness in order to enter its special world.
I'd rather take a nap.
This recording makes me want to go to Bayreuth. The soundscape is so individual. The hood over the pit there does something to the acoustic of the orchestra. As for the opera itself, I once did standing room at Covent Garden. Unfortunately, I neglected Birgit Nilsson’s advice.
It’s a beautiful performance where everything went right.
The recent Met production actually got me to sit down and really understand the piece…more how it works (or doesn’t work) dramatically.
I’m seeing love for Solti, that one never did it for me, it’s a little too full speed ahead and heavy for my taste.
I know the Penguin moved Karajan’s studio performance to the top position when it came out, personally I like Peter Hoffman’s voice so that’s an enjoyable performance too.
The one that’s full speed ahead and has all the clarity is Boulez. I guess im the weirdo who loves Boulez’s Wagner in general, but I like the urgency that he brings to it, and I enjoy the singers, even Dame Gwyneth Jones who gets through Kundry as well as anyone. It’s Parsifal for people in a hurry.
Goodall….oy…and the Live Levine recording from Bayreuth…i think that one is even slower.
Keep the Opera References coming!
Thanks Dave!
Many years ago I went to a performance of Parsifal at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. Simon Rattle conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Sitting next to me was the minister of Culture of the Dutch government. Wow. But yeah, half way the first act he fell asleep, with his head nearly at my shoulder. Still wondering: was it because of Wagner, or Simon Rattle... ?🙂
I think the ability to fully appreciate the stories of Wagner's operas, and perhaps that of Parsifal especially, only comes through lived experience of a very specific kind of chronic suffering of the soul that puts one in a very dark and lonely place feeling desperately in need of redemption/salvation.
It's not an intellectual thing, as Wagner elitists often make it seem. It's an experience thing and probably a temperament thing also.
Nobody is defective or inferior if they just don't get Wagner. I suspect they might just be blessed with a soul very much at peace with itself, in which case I have to admit to envying them somewhat.
Your reference recording isn't my favourite. Listening at home I get easily distracted by audience noises. My favourite is Karajan's studio recording. I care more about the music and the story than about whether or not it was recorded in Bayreuth.
The three I turn to the most are the Solti for Christa Ludwig in the second act. the Barenboim on Teldec and the A. Jordan on Erato with
Haugland and Y. Minton as the baddies. It served as the soundtrack to the Syberberg film from the early '80s.
Most people hate that film a passion. I love it.
I also like Ken Russell's composer films like "Mahler".
Just asking out of sincere curiosity, because I see a lot of people with similar “X that I turn most often to”comments and I’m always in awe of how much music people listen to. How often do you listen to Parsifal? How often do you listen these three recordings? How many other recordings do you listen to regularly?
'Parsifal' is my favorite Wagner opera so getting through it a few times a year is natural. I have a couple other recordings that I don't get to including the Karajan I 'imprinted' on. Other than "The Ring", I haven't listened to any Wagner since 2020.
I have patterns but I usually have more recordings of the music I listen to the most.
I usually don't chime in on things if I only have a single recording as a "go to".
@@tanaraci92 For instance I have 6 recordings of "Wozzeck" and only one if 'Lulu'. I rotate the "Wozzecks" but I have yet to hear anything more compelling than Stratas, /Boulez. It doesn't mean I won't, it just hasn't happened yet.
@@josefkrenshaw179 Thank you!
@tanaraci92 Speaking for myself, once a year for sure. Occasionally, twice in one year if there's something new.
I also make a point of hearing Meistersinger once a year, Midsummer, naturally.
I rotate recordings and broadcasts, usually depending on what I feel like hearing. Solti this year, Kubelik last year, Kna before that.
It’s a good thing Celibidache never recorded “Parsifal” - it would still be going on.
Or Klemperer 😅
And to think, the longest “Parsifal” ever performed at Bayreuth was by Toscanini! I think it was 1932 performance. 5 hours+! Toscanini thought the score was Wagner’s “ most sublime.”
Celibidache was too busy thinking about recording "The Mikado"....... (only kidding...but imagine!)
@danpastore1885 1930. But what people don't generally know is that for the second performance, he knocked over 15 minutes off the first performance's time span.
As long as the rhythm is firm, Parsifal can go as slow as it wants to. It's almost unique that way.
Toscanini's Bayreuth Tristans were also set duration records. Slowest ever.
@@bbailey7818 Yes! You reminded me on that fact! I read in several biographies that people said Toscanini really wasn’t “there.” He was like a priest at an altar. It was reported that when someone entered his dressing room during an intermission, he remarked, “….come un sogno.” Like a dream.
The parts I enjoy from Parsifal are both strictly instrumental, the outstanding overture and the "magic of Good Friday" piece. I don't care for the dialogue and the human voices. But again, I was never an opera person, and only started of them after I had exhausted the instrumental greats.
Oh yes, absolutely and also the reference on recording the Festspielhaus acoustics to best advantage. The orchestra just glows.
I guess its appropriate you'd fall asleep since the very first thing Gurnemanz says when the curtain (remember curtains?) goes up is "Forest guardians, sleep guardians more likely." 😴 Maybe it was Wagner's little inside joke. There ARE jokes in Parsifal.
The whole thing is a joke.
@@DavesClassicalGuideWe all need a good laugh now and then. 😃
Sitting through Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's four-hour film version of Parsifal in an arthouse cinema around 1982 was possibly the greatest endurance test of my life apart from my ex-marriage. I'm not hating on the music at all, though. Let's be clear.
I find Syberbergs' movie version the best Parsifal ever. On stage there is always an uneasy discrepancy between the marvelous music and the visuals. F.i., the young and agile Parsifal is an obese elderly tenor , the seductress Kundry an equally elderly screaming Primadonna. Not to mention the current postmodern realisations by arty farty directors.
The reference recording I love the most of Wagner Parsifal is Kubelik 1980. Orchestral snippets that I play a lot are Stokowski and Cluytens.
Kubelik could have been a reference in both Parsifal and Meistersinger but there were "contractual problems" and maybe some label politics that got in the way of a wide release. Maybe a topic for further discussion?
@jfddoc In the case of the Meistersinger, the blockage can be summed up in one name: Fischer-Dieskau.
I think there are “Reference Singers” for certain rolls…. In this case, for Gurnemanz, it has to be Kurt Moll. I can listen to him all day… Moll should be the reference for so many roles: the Commedatore, Ochs, Osmin, Sarastro… what a great voice!
Also his excellent Pogner in Meistersinger.
Strange but true: Pope Francis, a very complicated and inscrutable man, loves Parsifal more than any other piece of music. And this is his personal reference recording.
I have studied the 'myth' of Parsifal from a literary angle for a long time and am a believer but unlike Hitler I am not yet a believer in the opera. Only the prelude works its magic on me.
My first hearing was that same Georg Solti recording. However, in my case, I let it drone on while I attempted to clean my basement. So, I heard it all -- the music IS beautiful. I followed it by listening to James Levine's Metropolitan Opera recording of the entire Ring des Nibelungen. The basement is still a mess. Oh well. I have no idea what any of the plots are about. Except that there are Rhine maidens singing underwater at some point. Right?
They're in it. _In_ it!
(With apologies to the lovely Anna Russell😀)
They frolic in the water for a minute until gollum comes and ruins the mood for everyone.
@@dizwell Thanks for that clarification!
@@NecronomThe4th ditto! (Thanks for clarifying) ...I do recall that interruption very well, now I know who it is. :-D
The many different ways that Dresden Amen arises as a cadence from the fabric of the music is magical, whereas before I knew the work I thought it was just the same thing all the time. Could be thinking the piece is boring is because of a lack of insight. In the meantime, some Handel may give me an emotional experience that is not so immersive. It's interesting we experience music from differerent times differently of course, but all the past is brought foreward to this day.
It's only my opinion: The best Parsifal is the recording of Hans Knappertsbusch (Teldec, 1951). The great Windgassen. Excuse me for my bad english. Thanks
I will take this as a hint, when I have difficulty getting sleep.... 😅
I have not heard the Kna but will track it down now. I think my wife did wonder if she had made a wise choice in her partner for life when I bought Karajan’s Parsifal and Kleiber’s Tristan in close succession back in the early 1980s, but here we are still together.
I have the Karajan and Kubelik recordings these days. About 30 years ago there was a filmed version with Armin Jordan conducting. When it made it to Adelaide I went along in anticipation but walked out half way through. There are passages that I love and play frequently, but it would be more enjoyable at half the length.
Who was it that said that Parsifal is the sort of opera that starts at 6 o’clock and after it has been going for three hours you look at you watch and it is 6.20?
Speaking of Klingsor: Neidlinger is very good in the role, but Hermann Uhde under Knappertsbusch in Bayreuth 1951 is simply brilliant.
Yes, he was a great actor, and giving the role to a singer with a noble voice reinforces the tragedy of the fallen knight.
@@petterw5318 Uhde also had real charisma, which stood out particularly in demonic and evil roles: Kaspar, Holländer, Telramund even in Verdi's Grand Inquisitor, which lacked depth of tone but not of character. Uhde once pointed out to MET director Rudolf Bing that he could also sing King Philip. Bing responded: "What do I need Uhde as Philip when I can have him as the Grand Inquisitor?"
Hahahaha Dave. You're going to get swamped by Parsifal & Kna kooks! I listened to his 54 performance over Easter & much enjoyed, but think his later efforts more subtle & lighter. I love the swift dynamism of Krauss & in 53 the usual (& peerless) suspects are in better vocal condition.
Standard joke: ‘Parsifal is an opera which begins at 5.00pm, goes on for three hours, then you look at your watch and see that it’s 5.15pm.’
B’dum tish!
Yes, Knappertsbusch ‘62 is the reference recording but the stage noises and the coughing in the Prelude make it less than ideal, for me at least. Kubelik’s little known performance from 1980 has the best Parsifal cast ever assembled on record, imo, and it SHOULD be the r.r.but for its’ lack of ‘commercial penetration.’
The Goodall recording is actually pretty good; Solti’s is even better. In fact, most recordings of this work are recommendable, apart from the two conducted by Levine, both of which drag beyond belief.
I agree with you about Kubelik. His Meistersinger too.
@@DavesClassicalGuide yes, that’s incredible. And barely known.
Reference recording of Meyerbeer's Le prophéte? I suggest the recording with Marilyn Horne, conducted by Henry Lewis.
There is no reference recording, only a "we have no choice" recording.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Well now I am sad.
I say this as a Wagner fan: everyone, even the most hardcore fan, has dozed off at some point during a Wagner performance.
That's ridiculous, and just feeds into that cliched view of Wagner. I attended many Wagner operas and never remotely "dozed off."
When someone complains about how boring Parsifal is, I always have to think of what someone once said about Pfitzner's Palestrina: Palestrina is like Parsifal without the jokes. And don't get me wrong, Parsifal is really quite boring. But much of the music is simply heavenly.
On the contrary, I'd say Act II of Pfitzner's opera was one big joke, however unintentional.
@JamesDavidWalley I understand there have been performances of it that dropped the music for Act 2 altogether and did it as a spoken play; and others that dropped the act completely and did only Acts 1 and 3.
Dave, I know Parsifal from the 1951 Knappertbusch/Bayreuth recording on Naxos. Is the 1962 reference so much better that I should get that? (I very rarely listen to Parsifal, and don't need several versions of it)
Then stick with what you have.
the 1951 Parsifal is the best ever.
You said Parsifal threw the spear at Klingsor bit it's the other way round.
I know, but really, who cares? It's the harp glissando that caught my attention, not who was spearing whom.
Like “2001”, I love “Parsifal” but totally get why people don’t like it. It always staggers me that a piece of such profundity was written by a man with such much hate in his heart. If I met Wagner, I’d shake his hand and then…. Well… I leave it to your imagination.
I fall asleep every time before the hobbits get to Rivendell. I feel for you!
Sacrilege!
On Good Friday i thought i would give Parsifal another go,third attempt in 30 years!. all the way through...I have the DG Karajan recording which i was told back in the day was the must have...Eh! no.still leaves me cold.Thanks for pointing out the Ref recording i think i will give this a try and see what happens.Maybe i will change my mind.
Well, Parsifal does have a stupid libretto. Music is interesting - still remember Kubelik because of the deep, dark emotion I felt.
Good pick David, however your review was marred by the fact that you forgot to fall asleep at the end...
Sorry.
Well... Parsifal happens to be the first opera I liked listening to the radio, hence the first opera I bought (Solti), and then when possible the first opera I happened to see live. Now I just can't stand the story anymore (then I did not get it to begin with, I suppose). And it's waaaaay too long. I suggest to everyone to check what French writer Céline wrote on other French writer Proust to get my point. I dare not write it down here for fear of seeing my UA-cam account closed for gross indecency, but Céline's comment is fun (altough I do like Proust far more than Parsifal).
Hurray for people with experience and knowledge! I hate Parsifal. It darkens my faith even. Blumenberg with 'work on myth' et al. Knappertsbusch studied Philosophy and it shows. He didn't like rehearsals and his best recordings were live ones after the war
Better than sleeping pills...Parsifal...not Dave🤔
I generally only bother with the second act and prefer Wolfram von Eschenbach’s original romance, which I’ve read in two translations.
My Knappa Parsifal on Naxos (4-CD set, c. 1952) SUCKS! Aside from the dismal recording quality, the singers seriously fail to acquire delusions of adequacy---> their rhythms AND pitches are severely approximate. Any instrumentalist playing so badly would be horsewhipped within an inch of his / her life, so why are singers given licence to jolly well do what they feel like?
Uuuuhhhh ... Telling an opinion about Wagner, you are brave Dave! :-) ... all the Wagner groupies are going to tell you that you do not have the slightless idea about Wagner (that's what they tell you when you do not think like them). They do not think, they just repeat again and again the same thing (I would call it lethany). They do not accept any new idea or evolution, they just want dogma. Some time ago I considered myself a Wagner fan, but after seeing the dogmatic, unrespectful and old fashioned opinions from them, I stopped to consider it myself... well, I am, but do not say it. I guess it is something similar to Bruckner (horse neighing).
The worst opera in the standard repertoire, static men declaiming for hours. The prelude is all anyone needs.
Hahahaha Dave. You're going to get swamped by Parsifal & Kna kooks! I listened to his 54 performance over Easter & much enjoyed, but think his later efforts more subtle & lighter. I love the swift dynamism of Krauss & in 53 the usual (& peerless) suspects are in better vocal condition.