Search - Wagner, London, Van Mill :: Wagner: Parsifal (Complete) [Germany]

A 1951 dream team at the rebirth of the Bayreuth Festival

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 07/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"SOURCE: In the summer of 1951 John Culshaw and a sound crew from Decca were at Bayreuth to record the post-war rebirth of the great musical festival. "Parsifal," conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, opened at the end of June and played through July. In August, the bill changed to "Die Meistersinger" under the baton of the Festival's other conductor, Herbert von Karajan. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I believe that this recording of "Parsifal" was made in the same way as the recording of Karajan's 1951 "Meistersinger," that it is an assemblage of selected takes from rehearsals and several performances. For years, this was the only recording of "Parsifal" available to the general public; it formed the taste of a generation.



SOUND: This recording, like that of the contemporary "Die Meistersinger," pushed the technology of 1951 to its extreme to capture a live performance at the Bayreuth Festival. It is in perfectly respectable mono, remarkable for its time and acceptable to ours, if a listener offers it some goodwill. It should be noted, however, that the recording crews must have learned much from these first attempts to capture the Bayreuth experience in the new technology, for recordings made in the subsequent seasons show noticeable advances, even prior to the introduction of the newer-still stereo technology.



The voices of the singers are very nicely captured, while the orchestra is comparatively distant and a bit muffled, at least as compared to the latest digital stereo versions. However, it must be remembered that Wagner, himself, clearly did not want a bright and forward-sounding orchestra. He designed and built the Festspielhaus, in fact, to prevent precisely such a thing from happening.



The audience, respectful Wagnerites, maintained a remarkable and self-disciplined hush throughout (although I vaguely recollect reading of a couple of rowdy souls who dared to boo Wieland Wagner's lean and hungry-looking production.)



CAST: Amfortas - George London (baritone); Titurel - Arnold van Mill (bass); Gurnemanz - Ludwig Weber (bass); Parsifal - Wolfgang Windgassen (tenor); Klingsor - Hermann Uhde (bass); Kundry - Martha Moedl (soprano); Squire I - Hanna Ludwig (soprano); Squire II - Elfriede Wild (soprano); Squire III - Guenther Baldauf (tenor); Squire IV - Gerhard Stolze (tenor); Flower Maiden I - Hildegard Schuenemann (soprano); Flower Maiden II - Erika Zimmermann (soprano); Flower Maiden III - Hanna Ludwig (soprano); Flower Maiden IV - Paula Brivkalne (soprano); Flower Maiden V - Maria Lacorn (soprano); Flower Maiden VI - Elfriede Wild (soprano); Knight I - Walther Fritz (tenor); Knight II - Werner Faulhaber (bass); Voice from Above - Ruth Siewert (contralto).



CONDUCTOR: Hans Knappertsbusch, with Orchester und Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele.



DOCUMENTATION: This Quadromania set is the barest of barebones presentations. It names only six of the singers in the cast. Its leaflet--"booklet" is entirely too generous a term for it--names the conductor and admits that the four disks present the 1951 Bayreuth production. It provides a track list with timings. And that's all it does.



COMMENTARY: The town of Bayreuth was bombed and massively damaged during the course of World War II. One of the few public buildings that remained standing was Richard Wagner's Festspielhaus, although it did not escape damage.



After the war, it did not take long to reach the conclusion that the Festival must continue. But, like many Germans (the names of von Karajan and Furtwaengler spring to mind), it had to undergo a lengthy and painful process of de-nazification. For the Festival, that meant the permanent sidelining of English-born Winifred Wagner, the daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner and to the day she died, the outspoken friend and fan of Adolph Hitler. Control was transferred to Winifred's sons, Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner.



The Wagner Brothers faced formidable problems. The Festival was bankrupt, the Festspielhaus in need of repair and the accumulated sets and costumes of three generations were either destroyed or, worse, buried in a salt mine in the Russian Zone. As it happened, the brothers triumphed. They raised the money. They repaired the Playhouse. They signed up co-conductors of enormous prestige, Knappertsbusch effectively representing tradition and continuity and Karajan for brilliance and entry into the new, post-war world.



The reborn, de-nazified, financially strapped, artistically adventurous New Bayreuth Festival opened on June 30, 1951 with this very "Parsifal." This recording, then, is a major historical document in its own right. By one of those odd little ironies of fate, Knappertsbusch, the Man of the Past, led the first production of Wieland's radical, stripped down, abstract New Bayreuth style, while Karajan, the Man of the Future, followed up by conducting Wolfgang's very traditional, realistic and even ponderous-looking production of "Die Meistersinger."



Although some die-hard traditionalists (among them Knappertsbusch) were appalled, the new-style "Parsifal" was a smash hit. The formidable English critic, Ernest Newman was there in 1951. He wrote, "This was not only the best Parsifal I have ever seen and heard but one of the three or four most moving spiritual experiences of my life."



I must confess that I am not quite so moved. The very first opera I ever saw in an opera house was "Die Meistersinger." I stood through all five-and-a-half mortal hours of it and loved every bar, every note. On the other hand. when I at last saw "Parsifal," I thought that in doing so that I had just experienced the most thundering boredom of my life. (That time I was fortunate enough to have a seat, at least.) I have endured other "Parsifals" since then. To this day, I find "Parsifal" (and "Lohengrin," too) a dreary duty, entirely devoid of the pleasures afforded by "The Ring," "Tristan," "Tannhaeuser," "Meistersinger," "The Flying Dutchman" or even "Rienzi" and "Das Liebesverbot."



Before any rabid Wagneritie orders up a supply of tar and feathers, I admit that my distaste for "Parsifal" is almost certainly more informative about me than it is about the opera. My comments from this point should be regarded as those of one who would look more happily on the forthcoming amputation of a hip joint than on the prospect of suffering through another dreary "Parsifal" in an opera house.



As "Parsifals" go, this "Parsifal" is a very superior one. Knappertsbusch clearly loved the opera and he was a great conductor for it. Take this as a fair warning: his approach is not a modern one. He was taught his Wagner by Hans Richter, who had it directly from Richard Wagner, himself. Knappertsbusch was less concerned with absolute precision or quality of tone than with the dramatic and musical arc and flow of the piece. The widely-held belief that he was better in live performance than in the recording studio is largely true.



The reconstituted Bayreuth Orchestra was pretty good in 1951, but it would gain in quality with the passing of the years.



The cast is simply amazing: London, Weber, Windgassen, Uhde, Moedl and the rest. I have heard people whose judgement I trust (despite the fact that they actually manage to enjoy "Parsifal") declare that no-one has ever surpassed either Uhde or Moedl as Klingsor and Kundry, respectively. Whether that is true or not, I don't believe that a cast of comparable quality could be assembled in any opera house in the world today. It is astonishing to recall that this cast is only one of three or four of equal quality that could have performed at Bayreuth in 1951.



This is a fine and important performance of an opera I do not happen to like. The cast is wonderful, good enough to make me bewail the state of Wagnerian singing in the Twenty-first Century. The conductor is an old-fashioned man, conducting in an old-fashioned way, but his way may be truer to the intentions of the composer than today's accepted manner. The sound of the recording is good enough, although definitely in the "historic" class. The value of this recording is in the performance, not the technology.



To those who can abide "Parsifal," five stars."