There will be a reverse stampede to the restroom at the end of Act I, which may have been the real reason for the “no applause” tradition in the first place. Outsmart the hordes: find out from the usher or bartender beforehand how long the first intermission will be, and plan accordingly. Chances are there will be no need to rush. The first intermission tends to be very long—up to forty minutes—ostensibly to allow people time for refreshment. Another possible reason for the long intermission is that the soprano playing Kundry must be transformed from hag to vamp, and backstage personnel have been known to work overtime on this project.
Whatever the house’s real reasons may be, the first intermission is an excellent time for an overpriced sandwich, cocktail, or cup of coffee. A refreshment of some sort at this point in the evening is an excellent way to move from the spirituality of the first act to the earthiness of the second. A word to the practical: even the most affected socialites have been seen pulling homemade sandwiches and snacks out of purses and jacket pockets at this juncture. It is a perfectly acceptable practice. Bananas, for some arcane reason, are always particularly in evidence. Some yuppies may think you are being cheap to follow this example, but most people will recognize you as a seasoned and smart operagoer. The problem is that the buffets in the opera houses often run out of food on such nights, in which case those who were too cool to pack their pockets with food are to be seen wolfing down mints or begging matrons for their sandwich scraps.
A Saturday matinee performance has its own pitfalls. Usually people tend to err by overindulging in morning coffee before the performance. You don’t want a case of the jitters for this work any more than you want to overshoot your mark with alcohol or other sedatives. Basically, the same approach as the evening strategy will serve you well here: high-protein light food before, sustenance snacks for intermission, sensible consumption of both coffee and alcohol throughout the day.
If you happen to be attending a performance at Bayreuth, it need hardly be added, none of this is an issue.
ROUGH SPOTS AND HOW TO GET THROUGH THEM
For many people, all of Parsifal is a “rough spot,” and no guide in the world can help them get through it. For others (and they are a large number), the very idea that there are longueurs in Parsifal is unthinkable. For these, remember, this work is like a religious ritual, and to complain of dull parts would be akin to censuring the Sistine Choir for going on too long at a papal mass. What makes Parsifal unique is that there is hardly anybody in between these two camps. It remains either the pinnacle or the nadir for most operagoers.
Which is not very helpful to the newcomer. This guide has already pointed out a few places where the music is, shall we say, mellower than in other spots, and suggested strategies for approaching such scenes as Gurnemanz’s first narration and the beginning of the Kundry-Parsifal encounter. There aren’t really any recondite musical developments to listen for, as in Tristan or the Ring, nor are there many subtle dramatic developments to look for. Everything is right there in this work, if you are awake to hear it.
What Parsifal really requires for full enjoyment is a certain mindset. Rule number one: Relax! Wear comfortable clothes. Tell yourself that you are about to experience something that has no analogue, and don’t compare it to other operas—even Wagner’s. Savor the stillness. If you are an alpha-type personality who can never relax your brain, meditate on everything you know about the concept of Nirvana. If you still can’t plug into this sort of world, listen to your own breathing during the parts that have lost you. When was the last time you did that? It may even create a heightened state of awareness, causing the transcendental scenes of this work to catapult you into a new dimension.
Don’t laugh. There have been several instances of people having “experiences” of one sort of another during Parsifal.
PRODUCTIONS: WHAT YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO SEE
Anything. Or, perhaps, nothing at all.
Parsifal is the story of a closed, crystallized community renewed by the spiritual development and compassion of an innocent individual. The success of any production depends on how well the contrasting states of decay and renewal are depicted in the course of the work. Obviously, there is much leeway.
Wagner chose the settings for the first production. He was moved by the interior of the Siena Cathedral when he saw it, thinking it the finest room in the world. The painter Paul von Joukovsky sketched the interior and designed the sets of the Grail Hall based on this space. The most notable features were a high dome (from which, in theory, the boys’ choirs sang), supported on a circle of columns. This was the painted backdrop conservatives were ready to go to war to preserve in 1934. Klingsor’s magic garden was based on the garden of the Palazzo Rufolo in Ravello, near Naples. In other words, the first production was a naturalistic re-creation of actual places (one could hardly expect otherwise in 1882), and yet a certain spiritual atmosphere was undeniable.
Nothing much changed in Parsifal productions until Wieland Wagner famously cleared off the stage in 1951, giving what amounted to a sound-and-light show. Although this was radical, it was clearly within the parameters of the work. In this case, darkness gave way to light. Nor are you likely to see any other approach to Parsifal than one in which dark/closed/dying give way to light/open/living. The details depend largely on which pet symbols the director and designer choose to use for this portrayal.
The moribund knights of the Holy Grail may be depicted as fascists, ecclesiastics, or others who are instantly recognizable as “archconservatives.” This is almost too obvious to shock anybody any more. Most often, the production likes to create a new mythological space in which the eternal battle of old and new can be played out. Outer space, inner psyche—it’s all been done, and it usually makes perfect sense.
Sometimes details of the libretto are altered to fit the statement being made. The biggest question mark in the whole affair, Kundry, is often the focus of these changes. As pointed out above, there’s really no reason for her to die in the last scene, and some productions like to see her alive and participating in life at the end. Some take it another step, and have doors open, allowing women into the temple. Nice idea.
As for the Flower Maidens, well, kitsch remains kitsch, whether it’s 1882 or the new millennium. Directors can never resist a little T & A in this scene, and the score truly begs for it. Expect lots of color, floating gauze, and female flesh in this scene, no matter what concept is being explored in the rest of the opera.
The meadow scene is invariably … a meadow, in one form or other. Karajan’s famous Salzburg production of 1980 would be hard to beat for surreal realism. The meadow was studded with flowers—real ones, whose scent pervaded the auditorium through the scene. The “Good Friday Spell” music has often been called “perfumed,” but this performance was truly a multisensory treat.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY AND ESSENTIAL LORE OF PARSIFAL
The odd couple (1880–82) King Ludwig arranged for the Munich Opera orchestra to go to Bayreuth for the Parsifal festival, which meant the conductor would be Hermann Levi, the Munich Kapellmeister. Wagner was irked that Levi, the son of a rabbi, would be the conductor for his most sacred work, yet he knew that Levi was the best man for the job. Some of the more fanatic Wagnerians were not so easily swayed, and they began to write letters and sign petitions against this “sacrilege.” (As bad as Wagner was, a lot of his devotees have always been even worse.) In fact, Wagner thought himself quite enlightened about the whole question, even though he commented to Cosima that if he were a member of the orchestra, he would not want to be conducted by a Jew. Worse yet, Wagner sadistically made sure that Levi knew how much opposition there was to him. Levi offered his resignation. Wagner wrote one of his “why is everybody so temperamental?” letters, asking Levi to come to Wahnfried and get to know the Wagners “as we really are.” He added that perhaps the experience of conducting Parsifal might occasion a great change in Levi’s life (i.e., baptism), but continued to say, “In any case, you a
re my Parsifal conductor.”
Apologists for Wagner’s anti-Semitism often point to Levi in their defense of Wagner, usually omitting too much reference to this twisted letter. It should also be pointed out that Levi, although remaining true to his origins, was not immune from the self-loathing syndrome, and had publicly defended Wagner’s pernicious pamphlet “Judaism in Music.” But whatever Wagner’s and Levi’s mishegoss (the Yiddish term for craziness seems the only word for it), the superb fact remains that Parsifal was brought to life by a rabbi’s son. Filling in the cracks (1882) Wagner had determined that the Transformation Scenes in Acts I and III would be represented on stage by means of a cyclorama, one of those long painted canvas scrolls rolled from one drum to another to create the illusion of motion. The stage mechanics couldn’t get the drums to move quickly enough, and informed Wagner that they needed four minutes of music to effect the scene change. At first, Wagner was amused. It wasn’t often he was asked to make his works longer! Later, he complained about “composing by the yardstick,” and handed the task over to a musical assistant. The assistant, who happened to be Engelbert Humperdinck (later the composer of Hansel and Gretel, not the Las Vegas singer), was mortified, but did his job. To his surprise, Wagner accepted the extra four minutes of music for inclusion in the first Transformation Scene. The mechanics eventually got the drums rolling faster, and Humperdinck’s contribution was excised.
A very special event (1882) Parsifal was given at Bayreuth for sixteen performances in the summer of 1882, the first time the Festival House had been used since the Ring festival of 1876. Everything was different this second time. While there were fewer royals and glitzy types, musical Europe was there, and the rest of the audience was filled out with hard-core Wagnerians. Nor was there the same sense of disappointment that pervaded 1876. Parsifal was truly unlike anything anybody had seen or heard. Even the critics had nothing but superlatives for the singers, the chorus, the orchestra, the production, and, most of all, for Levi. Wagner called the conductor’s performance “beyond praise.” Perhaps most shocking of all—there was a profit left over after the festival!
A Bayreuth exclusive (1882–1903) Wagner always intended that Parsifal should be performed at Bayreuth—and absolutely nowhere else! The thought of this sacred work sharing a stage in repertory with other operas was more than he could bear. In fact, his greatest fear in accepting the Munich orchestra was not Levi, but the implication that the Munich opera would then have the right to perform the work in the capital. Ludwig, as usual, accommodated Wagner. Parsifal was only produced in Munich as one of the “private” performances for which Ludwig was becoming notorious. But nothing, not even the private entrance Wagner built in the Festival House to ensure the royal privacy, would get Ludwig to Bayreuth again. Pity. He never got to hear Parsifal in the house for whose miraculous acoustics it was specifically composed. Nor, if Wagner and Cosima had gotten their way, would anybody else have heard it outside of Bayreuth. There were concert performances in London in 1884 and New York in 1886, but Cosima held the copyright until 1913, and keeping Parsifal in Bayreuth became something of an obsession with her.
Piracy (1903) The United States was not bound by German copyright agreements, and only consideration for Cosima’s sensibilities prevented the Metropolitan Opera of New York from producing Parsifal. This consideration bit the dust with the new century, and the Met prepared to present the work. Cosima went ballistic, writing letters, initiating law suits, appealing to honor—all to no avail. Parsifal was premiered at the Met on Christmas Eve, 1903 (as festive holiday entertainment, presumably). It was repeated for over 350 performances all around the United States over the next two years. Cosima effectively banished anyone who had anything to do with the New York production, and her wishes counted for something in her adopted country. The Met conductor, Alfred Hertz, was never again invited to conduct in Germany.
Guarding the treasure (1913) Well, there wasn’t much one could do about America, but Germany was another matter. With the copyright on Parsifal set to expire on the last day of 1913, the Bayreuth forces went to war to save the work as a Bayreuth-only presentation. A petition to change the law specifically for Parsifal gathered thousands of signatures, including that of the ever-unpredictable Toscanini, and Richard Strauss lobbied the Reichstag in Berlin. Nothing changed, and the copyright lapsed. Now anybody was able to produce Parsifal anywhere and under any circumstances.
Many companies were waiting to see what would happen before investing in a Parsifal production of their own. Once the copyright expired, theaters scrambled to put together new productions from scratch, but by then it was too late. The war would soon shut down the theaters, and most cities had to wait quite a long time before seeing Parsifal.
A delay in Saint Petersburg (1913–97) Czar Nicholas II was one of the many fans who looked forward to seeing Parsifal at home, finding it rather inconvenient to attend a Bayreuth festival. He ordered a production to be mounted at the Maryinsky Theater after the copyright expired. The Maryinsky fudged a bit, and a rehearsal was given as a private performance for the czar and a few courtiers in 1913. The production never happened. The war put an end to all new productions, and then came the revolution. The Soviets, predictably, had no taste for Parsifal. The Russian premiere of the work was delayed until 1997.
The ravages of time (1934) Even with the copyright expired, the Bayreuth Parsifal remained authoritative. Nobody dared alter a single detail of the sacred original production, except for the Flower Maidens scene, which was constantly revised, never satisfying anyone. But the Grail Hall set was considered perfect. To change it would be sacrilege—especially at the very shrine committed to opposing such blasphemies!
Never mind that production values and capabilities had changed drastically in the previous half-century, and that the old painted backdrops, fluttering in the breeze, were embarrassingly out-of-date. Never mind the supreme irony of Parsifal, the story of a petrified community in need of renewal, becoming similarly fossilized. The old guard could not stomach the idea of a new Parsifal. (Photographs of the original sets are used in the 1982 film Parsifal, directed by H. J. Syberberg, making some sort of statement or other.)
The new head of the festival, the notorious Winifred Wagner, saw that a new production must be mounted, no matter what anybody, Wagners included, might say. Alfred Roller, a great designer of the Vienna Secession movement (and aesthetic idol of Hitler) was personally recommended by the Führer for the new production. It bombed. Those who wanted real innovation were disappointed, while there was never any pleasing the arch-conservatives.
Try, try again (1937) Winifred scrapped Roller’s production and gave the job of designing the next Parsifal to her twenty-year-old son Wieland. The result was no more successful. Wieland’s original Parsifal was hopelessly traditional to the point of being “retro.” Within fifteen years, people would laugh at the thought of ever calling Wieland a conservative.
Ideologies (1939) It was all a moot point within two years of Wieland’s production. The Nazi bureaucracy banned Parsifal in Germany for the duration of the Third Reich, without stating a reason. Hitler might have intervened, but never did. Parsifal was not one of his favorites. The result was that, once again, it was possible to see this work in New York but not in Germany—not even in Bayreuth this time!
The clueless conductor (1951) When Wieland Wagner staged his revolutionary Parsifal in 1951, one assumed he would have worked closely with the conductor, who would naturally have been in complete agreement with the spirit of the production. Such was not the case. Hans Knappertsbusch was a worthy conductor, but utterly out of synch with Wieland’s intentions. When the famously conservative Knappertsbusch was asked how he could participate in such an “abomination,” he replied that, all during rehearsals, he assumed the sets had not yet arrived. Winifred Wagner, who had been banished from the running of the festival because of her association with Hitler, said she assumed her son Wieland was out of money, and therefore left the stage
empty.
LOBBY TALK FOR PARSIFAL (BOY MEETS GRAIL)
If people have come up with wildly differing meanings for the Ring, they have pushed all bounds of sanity with their interpretations of Parsifal. The bare bones of the story are beyond dispute: this is the tale of a community whose once lofty ideals are now fossilized in decadence, subsequently renewed by contact with an innocent individua who has become wise through compassion. After that, one can think anything.
One traditional interpretation is plausible yet difficult to consider. The last line of the libretto has heavenly voices proclaiming that “the Redeemer is redeemed.” What could this possibly mean? Does it refer to Parsifal as the redeemer, and, if so, had he not already been redeemed earlier in the drama? Or has something changed in the nature of the Redeemer, Jesus? The latter is implied, at the very least. Wagner, in his later years, spoke much of Jesus, to the consternation of Nietzsche and many others. He even ultimately rejected the racial theories of Count Gobineau because they did not take into account the transcendental power of Jesus to unite humanity.
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