Wagner's "Parsifal' at the Met

Good Friday had a sanctified aura when I was young. Businesses closed from noon to three in recognition of Jesus's hours on the cross. Every Catholic went to church and the rest of us were caught up in the reverent spirit of the day. Signs posted on public property reminded all Philadelphians to "Reverently observe Good Friday." People on the street walked silently, regardless of their religion.

You don't see that any more, especially around shopping malls.

Yet that spirit is captured exquisitely in the Met's new production of Parsifal. Director Francois Girard has minimized the Christian ritual, disposing of medieval robes in favor of modern attire and eliminating the sign of the cross at the end of Act II. The characters' devotion toward their faith remains clear nevertheless.

Wagner's Bühnenweihfestspiel, or consecration play, concerns the Knights of the Holy Grail, who guard the chalice from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper and the spear that pierced him at his crucifixion.

In the drama, Parsifal rejects an hour of sex with Kundry for fear that his soul would be damned. Wagner's message here conflicts with his lifetime of sexual adventures and financial manipulations. One wonders what prompted him to this turnaround.

Amfortas, leader of the knights, once had an affair with Kundry and now is unable to stop the flow of blood from a wound to his body. This production takes the wound of Amfortas as a metaphor: Something once whole that is now torn apart. Blood flows in a creek in the center of a parched landscape, and in Act II the blood covers most of the stage, compensating for the lack of bite in the confrontations between Klingsor and Kundry, then between Parsifal and Kundry in this performance.

In Act III Parsifal's good deeds cause a miracle: The creek changes from blood to pure water. That detail, like many others, comes through better on HD cinema screens than they can in any opera house. Barbara Willis Sweete directed the cameras straightforwardly, without gimmicks.

Mark Twain on melody

The music in Parsifal features an almost endless spinning of simple melodies characterized by orchestral tremolos, not to mention arching arpeggios with diminished-seventh chords (that is, chords where the top comes a semi-tone short of being a full octave up from the bottom, thus creating a minor-sounding dissonance).

Two of the most-repeated musical themes are a rising motif, as if we're ascending to heaven, and a related theme that sounds like the line "Hallowed be thy name" from Albert Malotte's The Lord's Prayer.

Parsifal's tunes lack the catchy melodies of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from The Ring, Isolde's love-death, the Lohengrin wedding march or "Oh Evening Star" from Tannhauser. As Mark Twain put it in 1891, "I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of Parsifal anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or melody."

But Twain's operative phrase is "in the vocal parts." Many of Parsifal's tunes are in the orchestra, while the singers' lines are declamation over the instrumental background.

Unhappy singer

It reminds me of a time when I took a singer to his first performance of Verdi's Falstaff— which, like Parsifal, was a great composer's final statement. My singer friend left unhappy because, he said, he didn't hear any melodies. But he erroneously focused on the singers and blocked out the magnificent tunes in the orchestra.

Another drawback in Parisfal is Wagner's penchant for taking an hour to ruminate on each minute of action: The performance takes almost six hours, including intermissions. In any event, Parsifal offers hardly any plot beyond a foolish youngster's evolution into a man of compassion.

(I yield to Mark Twain again: "In Parsifal there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires to die.")

In praise of fools

The Met's current production minimizes these flaws and maximizes empathy for the band of brothers who lead lives of service. They train a naive and innocent young person who epitomizes the Christian reverence for innocents as well as the specific message of the book of Corinthians, which praises fools above wise men.

Jonas Kaufmann is superb in the title role, looking appropriately handsome and clueless and singing with sweet ringing tones. No traditional leather-lunged belter is he.

The low-voiced men— the knights Amfortas and Gurnemanz— are played outstandingly by Peter Mattei (the best of the actors) and René Pape. Evgeny Nikitin is a personification of evil as the magician Klingsor, who gives Kundry her assignments.

Katarine Dalayman earnestly handles the vocal demands of Kundry's role. But she lacks the vocal plushness of Kirsten Flagstad. Nor does she possess the warm voice or the sexual lure of Christa Ludwig, Tatiana Troyanos and Mignon Dunn, who sang the role in the 1970s and '80s.

Video future

Conductor Daniele Gatti favors slow tempi and cajoles the orchestra into sublime radiance.

For some viewers, this experience is transporting. At the very least, it leaves an enveloping sense of contemplation and hope.

This Parsifal will receive repeat showings in U.S. movie theaters March 20 and later worldwide. I expect there'll be a telecast and a DVD issue. The production deserves it.