Wagner: Parsifal - DVD video

Finally on DVD, the 1998 production of Wagner’s Parsifal from the Bayreuth Festival. in mystically poetic staging that exerts an unbroken fascination not least as a result of its expressive lighting effects.

Conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli and directed by Wagner’s Grandson Wolfgang Wagner.

The four main roles are taken by Poul Elming, Linda Watson, Falk Struckmann and Hans Sotin – one of the strongest line-ups in Bayreuth’s more recent history.

First DVD release of this 1998 production.

Running Time 268 minutes

Picture 16:9, colour

Sound PCM Stereo, DTS 5.1

Subtitles German (original language), English, French, Spanish

Packaging NTSC: Amaray 2 DVD

Booklet English, German, French

This production of Parsifal was recorded live at the Zurich Opera House in March 2007. It was hailed by the press as one of the finest Wagner performances in recent years, thanks in part to Bernard Haitink’s gripping presence in the pit.

The production by Hans Hollmann is austere in conception; Hans Hoffer’s understated designs using geometric shapes and blocks of colour to emphasise the juxtapositions at the heart of Wagner’s mystical opera – light versus darkness, good versus evil. The effect is beautiful and simple, focussing attention on the music.

The excellent international cast of leading Wagnerian singers is headed by Christopher Ventris in the title role and also features Yvonne Naef as a sensuous Kundry and Matti Salminen who was highly acclaimed by the press for his powerful, touching portrayal of the ageing Gurnemanz.

Additional features: Produced in HD, to be released in NTSC 16:9; audio will be in 5.1 DTS Surround Sound and PCM stereo.

Christian Thielemann launches a new era for the Salzburg Easter Festival, with a groundbreaking performance of Wagner’s ‘Easter opera’, to be available in a 2-DVD set and on Blu-ray.

Earlier in Wagner bicentenary year, Christian Thielemann put his stamp on the Salzburg Easter Festival with a triumphant Parsifal. In his first year as Artistic Director he has launched a new era, with a performance on the one hand firmly rooted in tradition, whilst pushing visual and artistic boundaries along the way.

The evening marked something of a homecoming for the acclaimed Wagnerian, who worked on the opera in Salzburg with his mentor Herbert von Karajan in the Eighties. Hailing a new tradition, the performance was greeted with tumultuous applause from the Festival audience and hailed by international critics.

The cast of leading Wagnerians includes the great heldentenor Johan Botha in the title role, Michaela Schuster as the enigmatic Kundry, Danish bass Stephen Milling as Gurnemanz and, in another break with tradition, Wolfgang Koch in the two baritone roles of Amfortas and Klingsor.

Unlike the deep pit of Bayreuth, where the opera was first performed, the orchestra in the Große Festspielhaus is placed on a raised platform, bringing it closer to the heart of the drama and revealing the full precision and refinement of Dresden’s great opera orchestra.

A new release from the series of Metropolitan Munich.

Parsifal represents the culmination of Wagner’s work as a revolutionary composer of opera. In it he created a powerful allegory on the conflict between Christianity and paganism, good and evil, light and dark, physical passion and spiritual abstinence.

This dramatic production by the brilliant German stage director Harry Kupfer marked Daniel Barenboim’s appointment as the artistic director of the Berlin State Opera in 1992.

The cast is made up of the finest Wagnerian singers of the period, all of whom enjoyed substantial international careers. Barenboim’s superb conducting reveals Wagner’s multi-layered score in all its glory.

Picture format DVD: NTSC 4:3

Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo

Region code: 0

Subtitles: German, English, French, Japanese

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Runnning time: 245 mins

Parsifal, Wagner’s last opera, was premièred in Bayreuth in 1882. In the fifty years of his artistic life Wagner did not only mature and outline more and more clearly the aesthetic ideals that formed the intellectual substratum of his composing activity but definitely upset the course of the history of music and of the music theatre. The wide range of his cultural interests, his operational daring, ability to blend elements of different origin, complete rejection of any form of operatic routine and grandiosity of conception make of each and every opera that he wrote a sort of artistic case in its own, where the experiences of previous works are salvaged or abandoned according to the expressive needs, which are never subordinate to contingent necessities. Performing this complex work is no simple task, but the cast on stage at Teatro La Fenice in Venice did so with flying colours. Available also in CD.