Parsifal
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Domingo, Salminen
Photo by Robert Millard
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By Michael Van Duzer
The unspoken bonus to attending a Robert Wilson production of an opera is overhearing the frequently heated discussions of audience members during intermission. Wilson’s spare, deliberate, Noh-inspired stagings are a magnet for controversy.
At Los Angeles Opera’s opening of Wagner’s Parsifal, the positive comments from those surrendering to Wilson’s visionary stagecraft seemed to have a slight edge over the complaints of people puzzling over why the spectacle onstage seemed out of sync with the plot synopsis they’d read in the program. But, love it or hate it, Wilson’s production had the crowd passionately arguing the pros and cons of the opera they were witnessing. Something you don’t hear in most theatre lobbies.
Wilson’s staging (recreated by stage director Nicola Panzer) jettisons the specific religious iconography in Parsifal, focusing instead on the universality of the young knight’s spiritual journey. Wilson’s use of light is as significant and groundbreaking as Wagner’s use of the orchestra. Painting a luminous landscape with light, he finds subtle shifts that could suggest the asceticism of Monsalvat Castle as easily as the dangerous sensuality of Klingsor’s garden.
As the years go by, it becomes harder and harder to come up with new superlatives for the production’s Parsifal, Placido Domingo. The man is a musical miracle. Singing with more power and stamina than most singers half his age, Domingo continues to astonish. He may not be anyone’s idea of the young fool who saves the Knights of the Holy Grail, but he sings with such passion and nobility that he simply inhabits the role. That said, Domingo is not an ideal fit with Wilson’s aesthetic. He is far too emotionally connected to the music to comfortably underplay in the preferred Wilson style. But he throws himself into the production with the abandon of an artist who never tires of challenging himself.
Matti Salminen is another singer who seems physically incapable of turning in a bad or even underdeveloped performance. As Parsifal’s guide, Gurnemanz, he sings with warm, otherworldly simplicity and seems quite comfortable with Wilson’s physical demands. Linda Watson is an impressive and accomplished Wagnerian. With a generous soprano that rings freely throughout her range and a compelling stage presence, Ms Watson is a Kundry to contend with and a worthy partner for Domingo. Albert Dohmen sings Amfortas clearly, allowing a mummy-like version of the character who slides across the stage to carry the weight of his suffering. Hartmut Welker is a gruff-voiced Klingsor, looking a bit like Nosferatu in his tower, while James Creswell impressively intones Titurel’s lines from offstage. The chorus, too, is suitably ethereal and invisible.
As always, Kent Nagano makes the job of marshalling a Wagnerian orchestra while mining the score for all its shimmering radiance seem an easy job.
Parsifal at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, The Music Center, 135 N. Grand, Los Angeles. November 26 – December 17, 2005. Tickets: (213) 972-8001 or www.laopera.com
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