Parsifal — HDVDARTS

Wagner Parsifal opera to a libretto by the composer. Directed 2020 by Graham Vick at the Teatro Massimo Palermo. Stars Tómas Tómasson (Amfortas), Alexei Tanovitski (Titurel), John Relyea (Gurnemanz), Julian Hubbard (Parsifal), Thomas Gazheli (Klingsor), and Catherine Hunold (Kundry). Omer Meir Wellber conducts the Orchestra del Teatro Massimo, Coro del Teatro Massimo (Chorus Master Ciro Visco), and Coro di Voci Bianche del Teatro Massimo (Chorus Master Salvatore Punturo). Stage design by Timothy O’Brien; costume design by Mauro Tinti; lighting design by Giuseppe di Iorio; movement direction by Ron Howell. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in German. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

Graham Vick finished this production shortly before Covid arrived in force and took his life in 2021. Hugo Shirley only mildly approves this as a production that seems to mimic other versions and “goes only skin deep.” See the July 2022 Gramophone at page 95. Cameron Kelsall explains in the October 2022 Opera News (pages 60-61) Vick’s overlay making this opera an allegory about conflict today in the Middle East. Kelsall finds this incoherent. But he goes on to praise the conducting and signing. So this would appear to be yet another Parsifal worthy of attention.

We now (late 2022) have 9 versions of Parsifal, almost all from the best opera companies on earth. It would take 40 hours to see them all with short break to eat! How would anyone have the time to compare and contrast such a wealth of offerings?

Here’s a trailer from C Major:

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Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.