Customer Reviews

Wagner - Parsifal, 2 tape set [VHS]

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1 star:		(8)

 

 

This is not an opera video. At least not in the usual sense, that is, a video of a stage production of an opera. Hans Jürgen Syberberg's film is about Wagner's 'Parsifal', and everything that this unique work evokes in him. In it he explores the associations of this work both backward in time, to the medieval romances of the Holy Grail, and forward through the century since Wagner's death. The film begins, in fact, in the ruins of Monsalvat, a metaphor of the destruction of the Third Reich.

Syberberg made his film entirely in a studio, like his previous films 'Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King' (Ludwig: Requiem für einen Jungfraülichen König) and 'Hitler: A Film from Germany' (Hitler: ein Film aus Deutschland). The resources of a film studio allowed Syberberg to film the opera against a constantly shifting screen of references and allusions (such as images from productions of Wagner's works from Bayreuth and elsewhere) shown by front-projection, thus imprinting his own vision of 'Parsifal' and Richard Wagner in a manner of which a stage-director could only dream, whilst also having the other advantage of film, that of showing in close-up the emotion of the opera in the faces of his actors and actresses.

The film was issued in 1983 to coincide with the centenary of Richard Wagner's death; and it is as much about Wagner as it is about 'Parsifal'. In fact, Syberberg original intention was to make a film about Wagner, but this plan gradually changed into making a film based around a performance of 'Parsifal', but filled with references to Wagner's life, work and influence.

Wagner has always been a present in Syberberg's films, both in 'Ludwig' and 'Hitler' (because of their respective obsession and passion for his music), and of course in 'The Confessions of Winifred Wagner' (Winifred Wagner und die Gesichte des Hauses Wahnfried von 1914-1975), where the unrepentant old lady talks on about the good old days at Bayreuth when the Führer made his annual pilgrimage to the shrine.

Syberberg had intended to try to use a recording from a Bayreuth performance as the soundtrack to his 'Parsifal' film, but after the Winifred Wagner film, he was none too popular with the Wagner family, and permission for him to record in Bayreuth was refused. So a new recording of the work was commissioned, with Armin Jordan conducting the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Choir (and, oddly enough, also acting the role of Amfortas!)

Syberberg wanted the soundtrack to be a separate entity and to use actors who would mime to the pre-recorded track, reasoning that actors were better capable than singers of giving the facial and bodily expression that film demands, and also wanting, for intellectual and aesthetic reasons, the voice to be separate from the body. However, this was not an absolute condition, and so both Robert Lloyd as Gurnemanz and Aage Haugland as Klingsor both sing and act their parts.

Syberberg regarded Kundry as the centre of the opera, and so chose for the part the outstanding German actress, Edith Clever. Her incarnation of Kundry as variously mother, seductress and penitent has been unanimously praised as a performance of hair-raising intensity. Parsifal himself is played by two people, first a boy (Michael Kutter) and then, after Kundry's kiss, by a girl (Karin Krick). Parsifal's sex-change is a coup-de-theatre for which Syberberg gave no complete explanation.

The studio set is dominated by a huge replica of Wagner's death mask, becoming a mountain on which much of the action is staged, being Klingsor's tower, the flowery meadow and finally parting in two to reveal (Syberberg's vision of) the Grail.

The density of allusion in the film is enormous and too much to comprehend in a single viewing: Caspar David Friedrich, Ingres, Goya, Dürer, Titian, Caravaggio and Bramante all figure in the imagery; the allegorical statues of the Synagogue and Faith on Strasbourg Cathedral are evoked; Amfortas sits on Charlemagne's throne from the cathedral at Aachen; Titurel lies in the crypt of Saint-Denis; a casement of the room in the Palazzo Vendramin, where Wagner died, is used as a backdrop; heads of Aeschylus, King Ludwig, Nietzsche, Marx and Wagner himself lie at the foot of Klingsor's throne; Mathilda Wesendonck and Judith Gautier are glimpsed among the flower maidens; the approach to the hall of the Grail is down a flag-lined corridor -- a procession, backward in time, through the history of Germany into a world of myth.

In this immensely ambitious work Syberberg presents Wagner's life, music and thought. He also presents a critique of those same things, whilst mounting a sumptuous and resonant production of the opera that is a feast for the eyes and ears, a true Gesamtkunstwerk, or, as Newsweek said, 'The film performs the extraordinary feat of both splendidly presenting and focibly challenging a consummate work of art'.

If Claudio Monteverdi's "L'Incoronazione di Poppea" could be said to be the first opera, then Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" is the last. If, as an article in The New Yorker would have it, it was Adolf Hitler's inspiration, then no other work of art has had such a profound effect on history. That article described the hypnotic power that Wagner's music had over the young men of the time, and Hitler was one such. "Parsifal" would thus be also the most sublime work of art: profound beauty permeated by hatred and enkindling radical evil. A contemporary critic said that Wagner had reached the limit of emotional intensity in music and no one else would be able to surpass him: opera had attained its final goal of maximum passionate expression.

Director Hans Syberberg chose a surreal presentation of "Parsifal" for his interpretation of the opera. He filmed it completely on a sound-stage and based the craggy, rocky set upon the composer's death mask. Wagner's skull splits open to reveal the interior of the castle at Montsalvat and Klingsor's castle; his upper lip is Gurnemanz's herb garden; his eye socket is the sacred lake. Syberberg also plays around with the appearance of the characters: Parsifal changes sex in mid-aria, Gurnemanz is an ageless young man, Kundry has naked hairy breasts in the first act. The set is littered with artifacts from history. The overture opens with a destroyed miniature reproduction of Montsalvat as it appeared in the first performance at Bayreuth. Parsifal approaches Klingsor's castle and passes by Soviet-style monuments and gigantic broken stone phalluses from a Greek temple. The chair that appears in various scenes is Charlemagne's throne from the cathedral at Aachen. Some of the elements of the set seem to be taken from Hieronymous Bosch. Syberberg seems to have scattered all these bits and pieces throughout the film with no overall interpretive purpose and left the audience to sort out the meanings.

But perhaps Syberberg intended to overthrow Wagner's unsavory themes - the anti-Semitism and the misogyny - and allow the beauty of the music to triumph by making the sub-meanings of the drama reflect this beauty less contradictorily This seems to hinge upon the changing of the boy Parsifal into the girl Parsifal. The frustrated heterosexual encounter in the second act forms a fulcrum upon which Syberberg balances a homoerotic relation between the boy Parsifal and Gurnemanz in the first act and between Kundry and the girl Parsifal in the third. Parsifal changes sex at the moment he experiences and understands the same pain and longing that crippled Amfortas. Apparently, Syberberg is making a Platonic assertion that sexual desire is an obstacle to true spiritual love, and that this love cannot be experienced between the sexes. This is also to some degree part of Christian theology, and what has been called "a black Mass on stage" the director may have attempted to reconvert into a true Mass.

Except for Gurnemanz and Klingsor, Syberberg used non-singing actors for all the roles. The trouble with this is that lip-sync seems to be non-existent, and it takes some time to become accustomed to it. Also, the recording is unevenly mixed. On the plus side, the acting is very good. Amfortas looks like he's really suffering, and Edith Clever is an angry and desperate Kundry. This movie is purposely full of cognitive dissonances, but the one that stands out is the powerful tenor coming out of the mouths of both Parsifals. The conductor moves the music along more briskly than usual, and this is quite refreshing. During the overture, Syberberg uses marionettes, among other things, to relate the story that precedes the first act. Like any great work of art, "Parsifal" can bear many different and contradictory interpretations; Syberberg's is the most fascinating I've seen.

I feel reluctant to comment in great detail on whether or not I approve of Hans Jurgen Syberberg's production. The only part of the visual aspect I found rather curious was the showing of Armin Jordan's conducting of the central section of the Good Friday Music (as viewed from the woodwind section) in the background. Wagner wrote the work primarily for performance in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, where the audience has an unobstructed view of the stage and the orchestra pit is underneath it. But perhaps this is a minor point. In terms of sheer sound the performance was very good vocally and orchestrally, and the acting and "stage" effects/sets were successful too. This VHS tape produced very fine audio quality on relatively simple and inexpensive equipment. I must say it is a real pleasure to actually see and hear this opera for about the same price - or less - as a typical CD recording.

For those considering an alternative VHS performance that is more mainstream, an actual recording of a live performance in the opera house, I might suggest the Horst Stein set made at Bayreuth with (as I recall) Manfred Jung in the title role, on Philips, or James Levine's set originally performed in 1993 at the Met, available on Deutsche Grammophon Video.

In a previous review, the reviewer mentioned Syberberg's attempts to get past the "mysogyny and anti-Semitism" of Parsifal. If, indeed, Syberberg was attempting this, he succeeded wildly.

I had never seen any production of Parsifal before this, though I've heard many, and am (or so I thought) well acquainted with the libretto. But this is the first time it was brought home to me that "the Redeemer" isn't of necessity Jesus. In fact, Jesus is never mentioned by name, and is only directly referred to in Gurnemanz' third act "Good Friday" lecture. In Syberberg's production, "the Redeemer" is mentioned in scenes and times when he could clearly be Parsifal, but he could also be Amfortas whom we see fighting down his pain to perform the Office of the Grail Mass that keeps his father (and the rest of the knights) alive, and even, perhaps, the swan.

Syberberg turns the swan which Parsifal shoots in the first act into an icon of everyone wounded in the opera -- Amfortas with the spear wound; Klingsor with his self-inflicted emasculation; Kundry who can find release from suffering only in her death-like sleep; Parsifal with the most subtle wound of all, that of his empathy and compassion.

Hearing the tenor voice come out of the mouth of a slender girl was indeed a shock, but I found it a shock that sent my thoughts into new arenas. And quite frankly, the Kundry performance was so powerful that the lip-sync didn't matter in the least.

And yes, there were puppets and masks. But the puppetry was absolutely outstanding technically -- the symbolism and power of Japanese bunraku came immediately to my mind. (Did any of the reviewers mention that the puppets were all designed from photographs of the first Bayreuth production?)

Everything in the film added to the sense of watching a dream, or being in one. Everyone in the Grail realm seems to be sleepwalking; Parsifal never looks anyone in the eye but is always looking off at something we can't see; the ruins and filmic backgrounds, the prints of the original Bayreuth scenery, the puppet interludes, the languid camera work, all contribute to the surreal, almost hallucinatory sensation.

If you want to see an opera-house production of Parsifal, this is not the one to get. But if you're willing to have your eyes opened by a powerful, unique, and above all mythic vision of Parsifal, I can't recommend this film highly enough.

Syberberg does with visual imagery what Wagner does with leitmotivs. The result is a work of genius twice blest. Syberberg takes us inside the mind of Wagner and places his Christian-Buddhist Shopenhauerian masterpiece Parsifal in the context of Western political and intellectual history. The use of actors properly cast for their pasts avoids the often odd visual effect of a singer who does not look at all like the role he or she is playing. Sometimes the lip-synch is out-of-synch, and there are occasional vocal lapses in the singing, which is generally excellent. The sound quality of this 1982 movie is quite good and well reproduced on the DVD. Wagner's message of compassionate wisdom as the basis of morality comes clearly through. One can see why the Nazi hierarcy banned this opera from being performed in Hitler's Germany, since Wagner's championing of the Buddhist idea of compassion for all is so extremely at odds with the Nazi worldview. This is a wonderful movie whose powerful images, both visual and musical, will stir the deepest human emotions. Anyone who loves Wagner's music and enjoys great cinema will want to view this movie. It is one of the great artistic achievements of the past few decades.

I found this film to be stimulating and inventive.
I thought the cinematic treatment really brought Parsifal to life, and I think all Wagner's music dramas would lend themselves to this kind of film technique.
The film is very rich visually: beautiful actors miming to wonderful singers--I thought that worked perfectly--the emotion comes through clearly, and for once Wagnerian characters actually look the parts they play (I thought adding a second, female, Parsifal was an interesting touch and dramatized the transformation of the character).
Great use of huge Wagner deathmasks as an integral part of the scenery.
Interesting textures and lighting.
Wonderful slow pans over the set and over the actors' faces--a huge relief from the typical American attention deficit editing technique.
Nice use of puppets to tell the backstory during the Act I Prelude; I found it added another dimension (puppets aren't just for children--they're for anyone with imagination).
Another puppet was acting out a famous caricature of Wagner puncturing the eardrum of the world--a nice touch: it shows the director has a sense of humor, and that he also knows his subject.

Some cons:
1. The orchestra sometimes has intonation issues, esp. in the brass section.
2. The lengthy credits come before the music drama, due to the constrains of video, I suppose (Act I on tape 1, Acts II & III on tape 2).
3. I was irritated by the inclusion of a swastika, among other standards, as Parsifal and Gurnemanz make their way to dinner in the Act I transformation scene. However, I suppose its not a bad thing to be reminded how the Nazis perverted Wagner's art (and everything else).

I completely endorse Derrick Everett's thorough and thoughtful review of this production, but would like to express one reservation about the DVD. The English sub-titles are simply disastrous, employing the worst kind of cod-archaic English, and subverting Syberberg's project. This would be less of a problem if, as with most opera DVDs, it were possible to turn them off - but it isn't. Contrary to the opinions of some reviewers, I think the sound quality of this DVD is adequate to good, but I would certainly be in the market for a new version with better, or at least removable, titles.

For anyone interested in Wagner and Parsifal, this is a must view. Deserves 5 stars. The theatrical settings are wonderful, the actors are superbly chosen - it's difficult to see how they could be improved upon. The famous Flower Garden scene is fabulous. We adore all the cultural references. We still have not found them all, and we do not understand them all. (But then who understands Parsifal anyway?). I read the DVD is better than the video, so wish I'd bought it. I probably will anyway.

To begin with, I'm glad I bought it. Many of the negative judgments in the following reviews are no more than the insults one hurls at whatever is unfamiliar--and certainly this DVD presents a great deal that is unfamiliar. People need to keep in mind, however, that this is NOT a film of a stage production of Parsifal. It could be called "opera with commentary," perhaps, commentary based on hundreds of years of relevant western history. That is not literally what Wagner wrote, no, but contains much to reflect on, combined with a decent performance of an important music drama.

I am not going to claim that I comprehended all the symbolism; maybe eventually, but not now. Some of the weirdness is really pretty easy to place though: phallic statues in Act II don't require a lot of explanation, for example, and neither, I think do the countless references to Germany's Nazi past or to the imprint of Wagner's own life on European (and our) culture. The rest, I'll work on.

The film has faults, certainly. The subtitles are truly terrible, not because they read like bad sixteenth-century texts (which they do), but because the spelling, grammar, and syntax are simply sloppy. That shouldn't have happened, but they are intelligible.

I also agree with the reviewers who criticized the pace, both musical and dramatic. The "dreamlike" quality of the first act seemed at first more zomboid than dramatic. But truthfully I don't know how Parsifal could be played (in filmed close-ups) as conversational interaction among ordinary people. The "opera" itself doesn't seem to me to lend itself to sitcom techniques.

I was also somewhat displeased that almost everything happened in very narrow physical space. I saw mountain defiles aplenty but not much of anything in the way of the open meadow called for. Maybe the constraint is deliberate, but I think of Parsifal as bigger, somehow.

I was more concerned that the music dragged: Wagner's immensely long, arching continuity seemed missing much of the time. This is a musical work, after all, not a symbolist play with musical eruptions. I cannot, however, put my finger on any particular point when the musical dimension was inadequate, so perhaps I'm wrong. It's hard to notice everything at once in this very complex production.

I was not much bothered with the lip-sync problem, and I liked most of what came out, never mind from whom. The actors do match the roles, and with Wagner productions that's not often entirely the case (Show me a lithe, red-headed vixen who can sing Isolde!) I cannot explain the two Parsifals any more than anybody else seems able to do, but I was happy with both of them.

I expect to play this DVD many times. It is not for the stubbornly conventional, but many viewers will find they have become deeply involved, unexpectedly.

This may be most important films or performances I have ever seen in my about 50 years of intense exposure to arts and literature. It is one of the most profound, stimulating and spectacular renditions of the final masterpiece of Western civilization. Whenever, watching Parsifal one is bedeviled by petulant reading that Nietzsche gave to it, complaining that Wagner has embraced Christianity. Wagner never bothered to answer Nietzsche pamphlet on the matter, save for a revealing letter published in his now most rare-to-find complete collection of writings. Wagner used myths as metaphors to reach for and express the inexpressible and draw from it an equally suggestive music exasperatingly longing for that which lie beyond itself. No-one would take literally the Ring's metaphoric imagery of Nibelungs working Earth's bowels, giants, dragons and magic fires. By the same token, Parsifal draws from the least Christian of the many Christian stories and imagery to use it as the most powerful expression of the journey of redemption; a team which Wagner pursued and expressed consistently since the Hollander. This performance highlights this artistic intention transcending the basic iconography of Christianity into powerful both expressed and evoked symbolology and semantic explosions which leave no space to Christian idolatry.
Wagner would have hated the minimalist performance in vogue in days, often dictated by insufficient budgets. His artistic intention was to have music merging drama, theater, poetry an choreography, is such a powerful manner that what results of it goes far beyond the mere sum of its elements. In this sense, nothing could be overstated or over-staged or over-expressed. The man who first placed on stage French horns, dragons, naked swimming nymphs, flower girls et cetera, would had undoubtedly used not theater but movies to express his symphonic poems. I love to think that this is the Parsifal Richard Wagner would have produced had he been alive now. It is a must fo anyone seeking a full experience of his own life.