Wagner Parsifal opera to a libretto by the composer. Directed 2013 by Francois Girard at the New York Met. Stars Jonas Kaufmann (Parsifal), Katarina Dalayman (Kundry), Peter Mattei (Amfortas), René Pape (Gurnemanz), Evgeny Nikitin (Klingsor), Rúni Brattaberg (Titurel), Maria Zifchak (A Voice), Mark Schowalter (First Knight), Ryan Speedo Green (Second Knight), Jennifer Forni, Lauren McNeese, Andrew Stenson, Mario Chang (Equires), Kiera Duffy, Lei Xu, Irene Roberts, Haeran Hong, Katherine Whyte, and Heather Johnson (Flowermaidens). Daniele Gatti conducts the Orchestra, Chores, and Childrens’s Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera (Chorus Master Donald Palumbo). Sets designed by Michael; costume design by Thibault Vancraenenbroeck; lighting design by David Finn; videos by Peter Flaherty; choreography by Carolyn Choa. Directed for TV by Barbara Willis Sweete. Sung in German. Released 2014. Grade: NA
Opera News calls this one of the 5 best opera Blu-rays for 2014 (January 2015, at page 51). In the December 2014 Gramophone at page 22, David Gutman made this Parsifal his "Critic's Choice" for the year. Gramophone in September 2015 (page 35) calls this one of the three best opera recordings of 2015. Finally, Gramophone Magazine in its 2015 Awards Issue lists 3 videos as the best opera recordings for the year, and this Parsifal is No. 2! It's good to see that the rest of the world is catching on to how important video is to the enjoyment of opera. But it also ridiculous that Gramophone doesn't even state in the awards story that all the three winners were available in Blu-ray. They just give you the DVD catalog numbers. When it comes to video, the folks at Gramophone just don't know what they are doing.
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