Author : Jos Hermans
Do we need "augmented reality" in the theater? It is already so difficult for some of our directors to coordinate text, music and action in such a way as to create a theatrical condensation capable of drawing the audience into an ecstatic enjoyment of art. With added layers of virtual reality, some directors will only try to hide their own failures. According to most on-site witnesses, the computer-generated images of Jay Scheib and Joshua Higgason are kitschily illustrative and redundant. How could the pixel-bombing images of cute lambs, yawning foxes, menacing butterflies and flying spears from Hieronymus Bosch's universe not be redundant? Surely they can only distract from what is really at stake. Surely one listens with much less concentration than without glasses. Or as someone put it, "It's like listening to the radio while ironing." The glasses also prove to be uncomfortably heavy and hot from the charging current. Spectators who wear glasses need to apply early for corrective inserts. That people will ever go to the opera theater and talk themselves into this virtual reality scheme using these kind of glasses seems unlikely to me. The theater is precisely the place where everything resonates with the authenticity of sound generated by larynxes, strings, air columns and animal skins. Only when AR glasses themselves are part of the artwork can I imagine them as authentic carriers of an experience in the theater.
The surprising part of this is that Bayreuth has reconnected with Wagner's mythical non-interpretive theater with this hi-tech gimmick. Jay Scheib's Parsifal is a one-to-one staging such as we have not seen in Bayreuth since Wolfgang Wagner. It is not even illustrative in the moments when you would expect it to be, perhaps because the illustrative is reserved for the wearers of AR glasses in the auditorium, and it seems that the scenic sobriety is a concept to allow "augmented reality" to make the biggest possible entrance. In conclusion, for the majority of viewers, this Parsifal has become very conventional and the production team has not been sufficiently creative in its staging to make a difference. The final responsibility then falls mainly on the soloists and orchestra, and fortunately Bayreuth has managed to lure a fine cast to the Green Hill. The scene is beautifully lit throughout and the image the camera captures is crystal clear. The live camera footage is barely noticeable in this relay and can undoubtedly be better appreciated in the auditorium.
There are hints of interpretation but they remain vague and incoherent. Nevertheless, Scheib has discovered something that he believes is responsible for the decline of the grail community: "We sort of focus on a future society in which myth has become possible again and the grail once again somehow achieved a kind of mythic property. But at the same time, we’re not that far in the future and the third act is set around a broken Lithium ion field. We’re set in a world that is somehow post-planet and post-collapse of energy production.” Is it any wonder then that the grail, as the community's central energy source, is a cobalt blue crystal? Cobalt, an indispensable ingredient of our rechargeable batteries. Has the grail community destructively exploited the cobalt grail? Can it be interpreted otherwise as unconcealed criticism of the hypocritical green-left agenda and the problematic plug-in car? The answer comes during the final bars when Parsifal will smash the grail to the ground, raise his arms in the air and point to the sun. As if to say : behold the energy source of our future! So when the grail knights sing about salvation, do they mean salvation from the idolatry that the worship of the grail has meant? Kundry's kiss, which made him "welt-hellsichtig," also sharpened his ecological consciousness and triggered his common sense regarding energy matters. Who knows what else he learned?
The stage is sparsely furnished. A bare monolith takes center stage. Monoliths have been appearing all over the world lately, so why not in Bayreuth? The grail knights wear camouflage clothing, styled by Meentje Nielsen between legion soldiers and Eastern monks. Gurnemanz straps on a yellow sarong. Just before, during the prelude, we saw him copulating with a woman who, for the rest of the piece, wanders through the piece like a double of Kundry. A sudden fear strikes him. Is this the origin of the fraternity's misogyny, a subject to which no further attention will be paid ?
Like most directors, Scheib has no idea how to handle the Verwandlungsmusik. Hoisting up neon lights attached to a circular grid is rather poor for simulating a transformation to the spiritual center of the grail community. Scheib also adheres to a blood ritual. The esoteric power of the cobalt grail causes Amfortas' wound caused by the Holy Spear to bleed. The blood is collected and passed around. Drinking it regenerates. Titurel manages to make his pockmarked face disappear in an instant.
Elina Garanca and Andreas Schager, both substitutes, make the second act into a treat. The devilish pimp Jordan Shanahan also surprises with his virile baritone despite the pink suit, high heels and horned helmet. His Klingsor was well-articulated and flawless in diction. His flower girls dressed in Barbie colors. Scheib shows himself no great director of a crowd. The dramatic tipping moment-the kiss-is intense and very physical. The transfer of the Spear, on the other hand, is a joke.
It is a rusty excavator on tracks that symbolizes the ecological trap the grail community has fallen into. As an art object it is beautiful but probably it comes into its own more through the camera than in the auditorium. It is not Amfortas but Parsifal who runs off with Kundry. Reconciliation also lurks around the corner between Gurnemanz and his rejected Kundry-double. The circle is complete. This is truly a happy-end! Prime Minister Markus Söder was delighted.
Georg Zeppenfeld gets better and better without ever being able to become an ideal Gurnemanz. For this he lacks gravitas and natural authority. Today it is the Wagner role in which he is most convincing. More than before, his delivery is sculpted with a sense of the dramatic. Every syllable is given attention by him. Every syllable can be understood and you cannot catch him making mistakes against the text. Steadily he approaches a masterful rendition. "O wunden-wundervoller heiliger Speer" was not given the weight it required. Admittedly, most singers of Gurnemanz are overpowered by the orchestra at this point.
Elina Garanca is a Kundry as you always want to experience her in the theater: gorgeous, mysterious, sensual, full of character, intelligently articulating and singing with a fine mezzo timbre. Her split personality translates into her partly white and partly black wig. Funnily enough, the black wig, which she wears only for the seduction duet, looks very good on her. The last time she sang Kundry was in the empty auditorium of the Vienna State Opera. What will be next? And when is her Ortrud coming?
Andreas Schager's identification with the pure fool does not tire easily, convincing as he is in his boyishness. The way he keeps the r rolling remains a sympathetic curiosity. He is also tirelessly passionate and "Wehe, Wehe" and "Amfortas! Die Wunde" are among his personal highlights. Still, it's too bad we didn't get a chance to hear a power tenor with a more baritonal timbre, seasoned in the Italian repertoire, like Joseph Calleja. It would have been a very different Parsifal.
We've seen it more scorchingly but Derek Welton's empathy-inducing incarnation of human suffering as Amfortas was quite OK. His diction was also perfect. The latter does make me curious about his Walküre-Wotan. Noteworthy also : Jorge Rodríguez-Norton as Dritter Knappe among the minor roles.
With less than 12 minutes for the prelude and 1 h 38 minutes for the first act, Pablo Heras-Casado ends up very close to Hartmut Haenchen. Kirill Petrenko needed exactly the same amount of time in Munich. Incredible nevertheless how Haenchen's tempi have become the de facto standard. With this, Heras-Casado also demonstrates that smooth tempi need not come at the expense of sacred atmosphere. All transitions were smooth. Nowhere did the orchestral machine falter. Even the prelude to the second act, always a litmus test for me, was taken energetically and had a biting crescendo.
Achim Freyer, who himself produced a fine Parsifal in Hamburg, said of Parsifal : "This piece remains an absolute mystery and must remain so, otherwise the viewer's imagination is destroyed." In other words : the spectator is supposed to create his own "augmented reality." So it is, at least in the vision of a director who refuses to interpret.
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