Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A debut
- 2 Berio
- 3 Paths to Montsalvat
- 4 Carter
- 5 Da lontano
- 6 Gubaidulina
- 7 A handful of pianists
- 8 Purcell 1995
- 9 Around New York
- 10 Tippett
- 11 Being in Assisi
- 12 Boulez
- 13 The composer's voice
- 14 Mozart 1991
- 15 A decade of Don Giovannis
- 16 Henze
- 17 Operatic passions
- 18 Vivier
- 19 At the movies
- 20 Schoenberg on the stage
- 21 Five British composers
- 22 Lachenmann
- 23 Mapping Mtsensk
- 24 Stockhausen
- 25 Behind the rusting Curtain
- 26 Verdi at the Met
- 27 A quintet of singers
- 28 Schnittke
- 29 How it was, maybe
- 30 Reich
- 31 Tracks in Allemonde
- 32 Birtwistle
- 33 A departure
- Further reading and listening
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
3 - Paths to Montsalvat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A debut
- 2 Berio
- 3 Paths to Montsalvat
- 4 Carter
- 5 Da lontano
- 6 Gubaidulina
- 7 A handful of pianists
- 8 Purcell 1995
- 9 Around New York
- 10 Tippett
- 11 Being in Assisi
- 12 Boulez
- 13 The composer's voice
- 14 Mozart 1991
- 15 A decade of Don Giovannis
- 16 Henze
- 17 Operatic passions
- 18 Vivier
- 19 At the movies
- 20 Schoenberg on the stage
- 21 Five British composers
- 22 Lachenmann
- 23 Mapping Mtsensk
- 24 Stockhausen
- 25 Behind the rusting Curtain
- 26 Verdi at the Met
- 27 A quintet of singers
- 28 Schnittke
- 29 How it was, maybe
- 30 Reich
- 31 Tracks in Allemonde
- 32 Birtwistle
- 33 A departure
- Further reading and listening
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Wagner's Parsifal is the story of a hero who brings new life to the knights of the holy grail, gathered in their castle of Montsalvat and hitherto languishing under a sinning, wounded king, Amfortas. In accomplishing this regeneration, Parsifal also destroys the magician Klingsor and heals the single female character, Kundry. Gurnemanz, one of the knights, is both narrator and observer, at an action that, like a ritual, will have to unfold again and again.
English National Opera 1986
The terrible tragedy at the heart of Wagner's last opera is that of a work which knows it cannot fulfil itself, and Joachim Herz in his new production is right to identify one of the main reasons as the composer's presence in the drama in the guise of Amfortas. This was the character with whom he felt overwhelming sympathy: Parsifal was to be his redemption of himself just as Parsifal would be the redeemer of Amfortas.
If Herz offers a plausible diagnosis of the opera, however, he does so with little subtlety, though it is unfair to give a definitive judgement on the production as yet, since on opening night it was not running at all smoothly, and also since the title role was taken over at very short notice by Siegfried Jerusalem. He did a splendid job in entering a new production cold, and sang magnificently, particularly in the third act; it even seemed appropriate that this Parsifal should be singing his own language, with everyone else onstage too polite or too mystified to mention the fact.
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- Information
- The Substance of Things HeardWritings about Music, pp. 12 - 20Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005