PARSIFAL

Richard Wagner (1813 −1883)

Concert performances on period instruments from 1882

There is no doubt that Wagner’s Parsifal contains an element of risk. With his final stage drama, the composer created a work that places extreme demands on singers and players alike.

Thomas Hengelbrock rose to this challenge in 2013 — and upped the ante. With his two Balthasar Neumann ensembles he mounted a concert version of Parsifal that sought to come as close as possible to the sounds that would have been heard at the work’s first performance in Bayreuth on 26 July 1882. For this he used original instruments from Wagner’s day and modern replicas as the basis and means of presenting an interpretation of the work grounded in a detailed examination of the conditions that obtained in 1882 and of the performance history of the music drama during the first twenty years of its existence. The result was a ground-breaking experiment and a genuine pioneering feat.

Reviews

„Parsifal for the first time on instruments from the time of the work’s composition – quite simply a sensation.” NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG

„No one I talked to had ever heard Wagner like this before, but everyone wanted to do so again, and soon.“ GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

“This was indeed a new Parsifal. The colours gleamed, shimmered and shone as if the varnish had just been cleaned away.” FAZ

“This was indeed a new Parsifal. The colours gleamed, shimmered and shone as if the varnish had just been cleaned away.” DEUTSCHLANDFUNK

“A pioneering feat and an against-the-grain start to the Wagner bicentennial: all that the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble achieved under Hengelbrock’s direction was ideally suited to converting Wagnerphobes and enchanting those listeners who suspected that beneath the grime of the last 130 years something different lay hidden, more subtly differentiated colours, more depth and at the same time a greater simplicity in the sense of a greater truth.” SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Cast

Matthias Goerne Amfortas
Victor von Halem Titurel
Kwangchul Youn / Frank van Hove Gurnemanz
Simon O’Neill Parsifal
Johannes Martin Kränzle Klingsor
Angela Denoke Kundry

Balthasar Neumann Choir and Soloists
Balthasar Neumann Ensemble
Thomas Hengelbrock

Performances

Dortmund, Essen, Madrid