Wagner: Parsifal [Import]

Thomas Stewart (Artist), Franz Crass (Artist), Gwyneth Jones (Artist), James King (Artist), Wagner (Composer), Boulez (Conductor), Bayreuth Festival Chorus/Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Bayreuth Festival Chorus/Orchestra
• Conductor: Boulez
• Composer: Wagner
• Audio CD (May 11, 1992)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Import
• Label: Dg Imports
• ASIN: B000009JNI
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,429 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #77 in Music > Imports > Import Deals
  • #98 in Music > Imports > Opera & Vocal

Track Listings

1. Prelude

2. He! Ho! Waldh Ter Ihr

3. Recht So! -Habt Dank!- Ein Wenig Rast

4. Nicht Dank! -! Was Wird Es Helfen-

5. O Wunden- Wundervoller Heiliger Speer!

6. Titurel, Der Fromme Held, Der Kannt'ihn Wohl

7. Weh Weh!....Wer Ist Der Frevler-

8. Nun Sag! Nichts Wei T Du, Was Ich Dich Frage

9. Von Bade Kehrt Der K Ning Heim

10. Interlude

11. Nun Achte Wohl Und La Mich Seh'n

12. Mein Sohn Amfortas, Bist Du Am Amt-

13. Nehmet Hin Meinen Leib

14. Wein Und Brot Des Letzten Mahles

15. Act 2 Prelude - Doe Zeit Ist Da. Schon Lockt Mein Zauberschlob Den Tor En

16. Ach Ach Tiefe Nacht

17. Hier Was Das Tosen! Hier, Hier

18. Komm, Komm, Holder Knabe

19. Parsifal! Weile!

20. Dies Alles - Hab' Ich Nun Getraumt-

See all 38 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars revelation over reverence, February 5, 2004

By 

Yuval Sharon (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wagner: Parsifal (Audio CD)

I don't know why people assume that this spiritual opera must be laden with ponderous tempi and a heavy-handed approach. Boulez's recording aims to give Wagner's best and most misunderstood opera a reading removed from all reverence and prejudices; like Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner building a New Bayreuth, Boulez strips away all assumptions of the piece to get at the core of the work. The result is non-romantic but thoughtful, gloriously dramatic internally and externally. Although individual moments of the Knappertsbusch or Karajan recordings might be more impressive in isolated areas, Boulez's achievement gives you a sense of the whole, focusing on the arc of the drama rather than emphasizing sensational moments. The cumulative effect is more powerful, closer to the awe-inspiring quality Wagner intended for his stage consecration than the other two versions.

Before anyone thinks of this reading as definitive, however, people should know that Boulez himself--looking back on this recording in preparation for Bayreuth's new PARSIFAL this summer--considered his reading "not flexible enough," overly influenced by his anti-authoritarian ideology. The fact is, there can be no definitive recording of any opera; the very nature of performance bars the idea of one fixed representation, no matter what any other Amazon lister may tell you. But that is the very spirit Boulez was working in when recording PARSIFAL, and his iconoclastic approach has made us rethink what this opera is and how it should work in performance. For that reason, this recording is a milestone in our understanding of Wagner and should not be undervalued.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing Parsifal, March 2, 2006

By 

Marc Musnick - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wagner: Parsifal (Audio CD)

I love this recording of Parsifal and it is refreshing to hear the opera without the drawn out broad strokes. It is tightly and quickly conducted by Boulez and the orchestra and chorus are at their finest. King as usual is superb and perhaps he was the last of the great heldentenors. Jones is hair raising as Kundry but she sings the role beautifully and her voice is captured at it's richest. What a huge voice too and her screams are real. The rest of the cast is very underrated when compared to the competition.

Boulez's tempi are criticized as being fast but I believe the timing of this recording is longer than the timings of the premiere under Levi, and that was supervised by Wagner himself.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A breath of fresh air, August 16, 2005

By 

Klingsor Tristan (Suffolk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wagner: Parsifal (Audio CD)

When Boulez first went to Bayreuth to conduct Parsifal in the mid-60's it was a highly controversial choice. It was not so long after he had expressed the desire to blow up all the opera houses and here he was, setting heretical foot in the most hallowed halls of all of them. And, what's more, in the famous production by Wieland Wagner that had been the special preserve of the likes of Knappertsbusch and Krauss since its inception back at the re-opening Festival of 1951. The performances, too, were just as controversial. Too fast, too superficial, too light and the orchestra found it hard to follow his batonless beat, they said.

This recording was taken from performances a few years later at the Festival of 1970 - my first experience of Wagner in Bayreuth in the flesh, incidentally - and if there were any problems of ensemble back in 1965, they had been ironed out by then. As for the interpretation - well, yes, it certainly is radically different from the likes of Muck and Kna from previous generations. But, like all great music, there is not just one way to play Parsifal. What Boulez did is to let light and air into the textures and freshness and (in Act 2 especially) urgency into the tempi. Much of the Nature music benefits enormously. Try the passage when Amfortas is taken down to his bath or, better still, the Good Friday music - the latter sounds so 'natural' when it is allowed to flow and keep moving like this. Nor do the scenes in the Grail Castle feel short-changed - indeed, some passages like the somewhat banal hymn the knights sing as they leave in Act 1 positively benefit from a little more speed. The moments of real solemnity (as when the Grail is first revealed) do not lose any of their profundity in the clarified textures. Indeed, from the tremolo hush through the carefully tiered on and off-stage choruses to Titurel's passionate outburst, this is as moving an experience as ever. It's a bit like viewing a much-loved and newly restored painting with all the acquired patina of age removed. And Boulez understands as well as any of his respected predecessors that Parsifal is about pacing, not about tempi. Like them he gets the weight and proportions of climaxes - musical and dramatic - spot on. He is also, of course, very aware of the modernity of much of the score. For example, he makes us very aware that a passage like the Prelude to Act 3 is harmonically far more challenging and disorienting than anything in Tristan.

The singers are a little less interesting and/or novel in their approach. James King is a good but not a great Parsifal. So, too, Franz Crass as Gurnemanz (a graduate of the Bayreuth chorus, by the way). Gwyneth Jones is as dramatically committed and as unpredictably squally as ever. Stewart, once you accept a slightly more gritty sound than a London or a Fischer-Dieskau, is actually an excellent Amfortas, as convincing in his anguish as either of them. I've always felt that Klingsor was McIntyre's best part in Parsifal - he has also essayed both Amfortas and Gurnemanz - and so he proves here: not quite in the Uhde class, but very impressive none the less.

All in all, then, a fascinating reading of Wagner's last score and a refreshing counterbalance to the Knappertsbusch point of view. I'd hate to be without either but, if pushed, I'd still turn to Kna in 1951 for a truly comprehensive summation of what this piece is about.