August Wagner – Bayreuth
We two, mother and son, made the pilgrimage to Bayreuth this year after attending Seattle's second 2009 Ring cycle. Bayreuth was this year just as Bea remembered it from 2002 – a beautiful little center of Wagner worship with the devout arranging their schedules around the four o’clock opera start time.
Colin Bayliss
Clemens Bieber
Bea and Alec Bobotek
Stephen Charitan
Jerry Floyd
Diana Herbst
Hildegaard Arnold Kiel
Walter Meyer
Anne Midgette
John F. Runciman
Per-Erik Skramstad
Julia Thornton
Mark Twain
Would you like to share your Bayreuth experience(s)? Send contributions here
That unvarying fact dictated busy mornings of elaborate breakfasts, museum schedules, conversational exchanges about the performance of the night before or the current state of the festival management, as well as other temptations: the shops and the lectures, the latter sponsored by the New York Wagner Society, this year by Hans Rudolf Vaget, Professor Emeritus from Smith College (and editor of a journal of Wagner studies, among other things).
The Parsifal of August 27 was performed in a very warm Festspielhaus but turned out to be so riveting that somehow the oppressive heat hardly seemed to matter: remarkably, there were no audience casualties. The next evening brought considerably cooler temperatures but a less-than-memorable Tristan production. The net result, perhaps predictable: by the last act, the audience suffered casualties requiring semi-conscious members to be carried from their seats. How fortifying a fine Parsifal can be.
Parsifal
Our Parsifal was indeed very fine, but involved much extrapolation of the modern history of Germany and accompanying references to swastikas and the like. It also featured the first childbirth scene (of Kundry) that we remember seeing in a Parsifal. There were strong visual icons – bed with trap door in stage center, fireplace/hearth, and a clock that seemed to measure social progress rather than time. Its elaborate sets, costumes, technology (electric and pyrotechnic spears, visual projection), visual icons, and concurrent telling of a second story worked well, providing overall a most complex and rich opera experience of music, theatre, and story. There were zero boos and plenty of heartfelt bravos from the audience – despite earlier unease when the swastikas and stormtroopers made their appearance.
This production, introduced in 2008, is the work of Stefan Herheim who combined, as implied above, “various aspects of current European stage styles, psychological realism with symbolism and metaphor, between the text inferences, and influences of surrealism” (our translation of phrases from a German-language booklet on the production by Suzanne Vill). Included in the metaphoric staging were scenes not only of the progression of German history on film, but also visual references to Haus Wahnfried as the characters of Parsifal and Herzeleide were shown in childhood and in varying stages of growing up, particularly in the case of Parsifal. The first scene included a rocking horse.
One suspects the staging has strayed too far when one must rely on the director’s off-stage narratives to explain the progress of events. But all in all this was an involving, fascinatingly conceived production.
Tristan
By any measure, Tristan was a very flat performance. The production opened on a flat stage with two padded stools at stage front and two wooden and glass-enclosed booths next to each other at the back. Isolde and Brangäne sat on the stools huddled tightly next to each other, while Tristan and his envoy emerged and returned to their respective booths at their entrances. The potion drinking episode did provide a bit of drama, at least.
The final act had Tristan in a bed horizontally placed on the stage, with Isolde singing and expiring in the bed after having embraced the dead Tristan who by that time lay on a stretcher in front of the bed. There was some play of lights in the ceiling and on the walls of the theater, coarsely reflecting the day and the night.
Since Tristan is really all about expression through musical means, we can report that Peter Schneider conducted the festival orchestra with relaxed aplomb even if somewhat perfunctorily at times, and that Tristan (Robert Dean Smith), King Marke (Robert Holl), Kurvenal (Jukka Rasilainen), and Brangäne (Michelle Breedt) were faithfully and artistically portrayed and with satisfyingly fresh vocal resources. Robert Dean Smith performed with considerable security, much as he had in the recent Met broadcast performance. On the other hand, the Isolde of Iréne Theorin was a major disappointment given the excitement built around her unexpected Met debut as Brünnhilde. The Swedish soprano sang shrilly at the top, and with surprisingly poor diction. So, all in all, thumbs down for this production.
Wahnfried
The day after the festival’s end, there was a quick exodus from the hotel, and many restaurants curtailed their hours of service, as did our hotel, the Arvena Kongress. But no problem, we had scheduled a visit to Wahnfried, which with its expansive proportions including an open air atrium and lavish possessions, artworks and furnishings belie the indebtedness of its original owner.
A high point of our visit was an unscheduled recital, for just three of us, by Hungarian pianist Jenö Jandó who, during our visit to the Liszt house and museum across the street from Wahnfried, had persuaded a delighted curator to allow him to play one of Liszt’s pianos (formerly used by Wagner while he was working on Parsifal).