Wagner's Valhalla

[knight66]

Tomorrow morning at 9:30, Building A Library on Radio 3 will be seeking out the best Tristan und Isolde. Wonder which one will come out tops. Which recording would GMGers recommend? I've got Bohm's recording which I think will do me, although I sometimes have a hankering to hear the DG Kleiber.

The studio Kleiber for me.

A monster of an idea, but....for the conducting how about the studio versions of

Act 1 Furtwangler
Act 2 Kleiber
Act 3 Karajan

Throw in tha live DG Bohm with Nilsson, Act 1 with Gertrude Grob-Prandl, Runnicles for his patient slow builds and Flagstad/Melchior/Reiner as a terrific combination and I might just about manage to be sated.

I will listen in to find out how the comparisons go. Non starters for me are Solti and Goodall.

Mike.

[knight66]

The review took almost an hour and a quarter. This is the one that came out top. It is full price; but next month will be issued at bargain price, without libretto.

I did not altogether agree with the reviewer who found Kleiber both tempestuous and cool! Did not care for Vickers or Karajan. So the usual subjectivity that is only natural.

Mike

[Sergeant Rock]

The review took almost an hour and a quarter. This is the one that came out top.

Interesting choice...and one of only two Barenboim Wagner recordings I don't own (the other is Meistersinger). I believe that's Jens' favorite Tristan (if not his favorite one of his top choices anyway). I've stayed away from it despite his recommendation because I'm no fan of Meier. Just don't enjoy the sound of her voice.

Sarge

[knight66]

Ditto, nor of Stemme who the BBC critic was ecstatic about. I have her on his recommended Video version from Glyndebourne, I rate it highly, but the sound of her voice is diluted by the drama, acting etc. Listening to it without the visuals; I don't really enjoy her.

Mike

[Scarpia]

I would shorten it even further - I love the whole of Act 2 and wouldn't want to miss the scene between Klingsor and Kundry, nor the one between Parsifal and the Flower Maidens.

The Flowermaiden scene is one of the best things in the work, I think. 

[GanChan]

Speaking of Tristan, what's the best-sounding remaster of the classic 1952 Vinay-Modl-Karajan recording? The sound apparently varies wildly from label to label, with lesser transfers suffering from heavy overloading at climaxes. I know at least one label got it right, but I can't recall which one.

[Mirror Image]

The review took almost an hour and a quarter. This is the one that came out top. It is full price; but next month will be issued at bargain price, without libretto.

I did not altogether agree with the reviewer who found Kleiber both tempestuous and cool! Did not care for Vickers or Karajan. So the usual subjectivity that is only natural.

Mike

I've been looking at this one, Mike. I'll keep my eye out for an original, because I want the libretto. You also answered my question on the other Wagner thread which was do the new reissued Barenboim recordings come with libretto and now I know that don't so kudos for that.

[Mandryka]

The Flowermaiden scene is one of the best things in the work, I think.

It's the kiss that I like. Me, I can't bear all the stuff with Klingsor and the flowers, but the Parsifal/Kundry duet is for me the heart of the opera. What is going on when he kisses her? What does he learn? Why does he refuse go further?  I don't know -- a mystery and it's probably all nonsense.

One of the reasons I like Kna/Vickers/Hotter is that this duet comes off well == as it does in the Karajan

[jlaurson]

It's the kiss that I like. Me, I can't bear all the stuff with Klingsor and the flowers, but the Parsifal/Kundry duet is for me the heart of the opera. What is going on when he kisses her? What does he learn? Why does he refuse go further?  I don't know -- a mystery and it's probably all nonsense.

He most likely has a sudden revelation of all those places those lips have been in the last 900 years. Now that's a thought fit to bring even the surest seducer to a pale. [In her former incarnations she must have f-ed half of antiquity.]

From the upcoming 2011 (Society of Friends of) Bayreuth Almanac:

...Kundry's name comes from "Kunde geben", 'to bear tidings'. The grail's messenger knows much – and moonlights as Klingsor's top hooker on the side. This "wild rider" (no pun intended) simply isn't the right mate for Parsifal. She gets described as a demonic primeval woman (hence her nickname 'Hell's Rose'), and a few of her re-incarnation pit stops through history are mentioned: For example Herodias and "Gundryggia" (Weaver of War, one of the Valkyries, more or less made up by Wagner). According to Wagner's rigorously drastic explanation she's condemned to bring suffering upon man by means of seduction. Redemption, resolution, and concluding expiration are only in the cards for her if a perfectly pure man in the prime of his life can resist her best attempts at seduction. Boy, Wagner really has a knack for putting things into a nutshell...

[Mandryka]

He most likely has a sudden revelation of all those places those lips have been in the last 900 years. Now that's a thought fit to bring even the surest seducer to a pale. [In her former incarnations she must have f-ed half of antiquity.]

From the upcoming 2011 (Society of Friends of) Bayreuth Almanac:

Hmmmm. That makes it sound as though it's just sex with Kundry which he flees from. I suspect he's fleeing from sex with any woman.

Because Parsifal had some sort of revelation in the duet with Kundry, he becomes the redeemer in Act 3.

Klingsor's self-castration is not irrelevant here too.

See why I say it's probably all nonsense 

[Scarpia]

...Kundry's name comes from "Kunde geben", 'to bear tidings'. The grail's messenger knows much – and moonlights as Klingsor's top hooker on the side. This "wild rider" (no pun intended) simply isn't the right mate for Parsifal. She gets described as a demonic primeval woman (hence her nickname 'Hell's Rose'), and a few of her re-incarnation pit stops through history are mentioned: For example Herodias and "Gundryggia" (Weaver of War, one of the Valkyries, more or less made up by Wagner). According to Wagner's rigorously drastic explanation she's condemned to bring suffering upon man by means of seduction. Redemption, resolution, and concluding expiration are only in the cards for her if a perfectly pure man in the prime of his life can resist her best attempts at seduction. Boy, Wagner really has a knack for putting things into a nutshell...

More like a coconut shell. 

Wagner was clearly a miracle worker with an orchestra, the fact that he could only find inspiration in these bastardized medieval texts and not in the passions and dilemmas of actual human beings is my main difficulty with him.  A real woman is not complex enough, he has to populate his operas with these grotesque pseudo-mythical figures?   

[jlaurson]

Hmmmm. That makes it sound as though it's just sex with Kundry which he flees from. I suspect he's fleeing from sex with any woman.

Well, if you've heard about, seen, and/or enjoyed Lohengrin, you know that ain't so.

From the same text [my very liberal translation]

If we evaluate the questionable 'coupling-prohibition' of Wagner's last music drama, we should remember that the story continues well beyond act III. Parsifal does find an adequate partner when he meets Kondwiramur ("conduir l'amour" – 'leading love') and has two children with her; Kardeiz (better suited for worldly matters) and of course Lohengrin (more adept in matters spiritual). So much for absolute chastity.

[Mandryka]

Was Lohengrin written at the same time as Parsifal? I guess all sorts of new ideas  could have influenced Wagner between the operas.

In fact I've only seen Lohengrin once and I have no recordings, so I hardly know it.

The text for Wagner's Parsifal is only loosely based on the old legend. I don't see how that comment about Kondwiramur etc can be relevant.

One interesting and may be relevant thing is what happens at the end. I think Parsifal normally abandons Kundry -- she isn't allowed to be touched by the magic of the revealed grail. I believe in his last Beyreuth performance Knappertsbusch insisted on changing the stage directions: Parsifal led Kundry right up to the shrine as he sang his final lines.

That would make Mosalvat more like a hippy commune than a monastery full of male celibates. Anyway, when I'm invited to produce it at Beureuth that's how I will set it: Act one in an old person's home; Act two in a brothel; Act three in a hippy community living on the beach in California 

[Mirror Image]

I've been making my way through Solti's Parsifal and I have to say this is just an incredible piece of music. I thought I would never be sitting here talking about how much I love Wagner's music. I knew of his importance, and, me, not being a big fan of opera, I simply avoided him and only listened to his overtures/preludes from the operas and the Siegfried Idyll. Now, I'm starting to think that I should have just jumped right into the operas and throw any kind of negative preconceived notions I had out the window. I was WRONG about Wagner and about opera in general. This medium has become highly enjoyable for me and it all started with Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle which was the opera that broke down the "noise barriers" in my ears and allowed me to hear the beauty of the human voice in conjunction with an orchestra.

Wagner's operas are long, drawn out, sometimes incredibly brash, but my goodness do I love them!

[zamyrabyrd]

Hmmmm. That makes it sound as though it's just sex with Kundry which he flees from. I suspect he's fleeing from sex with any woman. Because Parsifal had some sort of revelation in the duet with Kundry, he becomes the redeemer in Act 3. Klingsor's self-castration is not irrelevant here too.
See why I say it's probably all nonsense 

Kundry can only redeem herself by Dienen (service), which may apply not only to women in general but despised races. The liturgy of the blood in Parsifal is too much for me, and even perverse.

Lohengrin's higher calling back to the Monastery of the Holy Grail had him renounce human love, once his identity was revealed. There is something to Nietzsche's complaint, the 'Case of Wagner', where he openly prefers the more believable humanity of Bizet's Carmen. Also there is something to Wagner's own uncertainty as to his own paternity and by extension, suspicions and even resentment towards his mother.

ZB

[jlaurson]

. Also there is something to Wagner's own uncertainty as to his own paternity and by extension, suspicions and even resentment towards his mother.

The latter is an assertion I can't follow. RW, who even took his stepfather's name as a kid, would probably have been happy/proud if he had been the biological son of Richard Geyer.

Was Lohengrin written at the same time as Parsifal?
The text for Wagner's Parsifal is only loosely based on the old legend. I don't see how that comment about Kondwiramur etc can be relevant.

Lohengrin was written long before Parsifal... (Parsifal being the last opera; Lohengrin his sixth* in all, fourth 'proper' one, and third in the 'canon'. Depending on how you look at it, it's the last of his 'conventional' operas or the first of Wagner-as-Wagner.)

The legends Wagner worked off are always relevant, because he might change, invent, re-name, re-place details, work his personal experiences into all of them, and pilfer his own jumble of philosophy and impose that on the subjects... but that doesn't change the fact that Parsifal married Kondwiramur and have children. "In Wagner" they have Lohengrin directly; in the old sources there's another generation between the two. Wagner was aware of that when he put it in Lohengrin; he didn't suddenly forget it when he composed Parsifal.

*counting only completed operas starting with Die Feen -> Das Liebesverbot -> Rienzi -> Flying D'man -> Tannhäuser -> Lohengrin.

[Scarpia]

Lohengrin was written long before Parsifal... (Parsifal being the last opera; Lohengrin his sixth* in all, fourth 'proper' one, and third in the 'canon'. Depending on how you look at it, it's the last of his 'conventional' operas or the first of Wagner-as-Wagner.)

The text of Parsifal was written long before the music, I seem to recall reading.

[jlaurson]

The text of Parsifal was written long before the music, I seem to recall reading.

Kernels of ideas (as in all his work) precede the composition, as does the creation of the text... but even that only really began with some sketches drafts about 20 years after Lohengrin (1845-48) was conceived and was then put into proper form some 30 years after Lohengrin, around 1877.

[mjwal]

The legends Wagner worked off are always relevant, because he might change, invent, re-name, re-place details, work his personal experiences into all of them, and pilfer his own jumble of philosophy and impose that on the subjects... but that doesn't change the fact that Parsifal married Kondwiramur and have children.
[/quote]
Sheesh, and i always thought Wolfram von Eschenbach had made Condwiramurs up in his fictional verse romance. There is such a thing as the Grail legend, but the story of Peredur/Perceval/Parsival/Parsifal was picked up and embroidered by each successive writer. So there is no "fact" involved.

[jlaurson]

Sheesh, and i always thought Wolfram von Eschenbach had made Condwiramurs up in his fictional verse romance. There is such a thing as the Grail legend, but the story of Peredur/Perceval/Parsival/Parsifal was picked up and embroidered by each successive writer. So there is no "fact" involved.

Rocky won his first World Championship against Apollo Creed. That's a fact, even if it's a fictionalized series. Kondwiramur is, in that sense, a fact... just as Parceval is a fact. Facts refer to the frame of reference, not necessarily 'reality'. The latter would be called a 'historical fact'. My point is merely that Kondwiramur does matter in the Wagner context; that in Wagner Kondwiramur is Lohengrin's mother, just as Parsifal is his father... [Whereas in Eschenbach-fact Parzifal is Lohengrin's dad.]