Wagner: Parsifal

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

What really distinguishes this...is Gergiev. His reading is vivid and luminous, generally expansive but with fluidly shifting tempos, unashamedly guilty of theatrical excitement. Yet he evokes... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2010, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 20th Sep 2010
Catalogue No: MAR0508
Label: Mariinsky
Length: 4 hours 18 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

20th September 2010
BBC Music Magazine

October 2010

Disc of the month
Gramophone Magazine

Awards Issue 2010

Editor's Choice

Wagner: Parsifal

Work length4:18:19

$43.00

$53.75

$62.60

Alexei Tanovitski, Nikolai Putilin, Valéry Gergiev, René Pape, Evgeny Nikitin, Gary Lehman, Alla Martynenko, Olga Trífonova, Mariinsky (Kirov) Orchestra, Violeta Urmana, Irina Mataeva, Yuri Alexeev, Mariinsky Chorus, Liudmila Dudinova, Yuri Vorobiev, Mariinsky Children's Chorus, Elena Ushakova, Lia Shevtsova, Olga Legkova, Zhanna Dombrovskaya, Alexander Timchenko, Anna Kiknadze, Andrei Popov

Vorspiel, Pt. 1

Track length4:19

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Vorspiel - Prelude - Part II

Track length8:21

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene I, "He! Ho! Waldhueter ihr!"

Track length9:19

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene II, "Recht so! Habt Dank! Ein wenig Rast"

Track length6:35

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act I, Scene III, "Nicht Dank! Ha, ha! Was wird es helfen?"

Track length8:09

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene IV, "O wunden-wundervoller heiliger Speer!"

Track length4:17

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act I, Scene V, "Titurel, der fromme Held, der kannt' ihn wohl"

Track length12:01

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act I, Scene VI, "Weh'! Weh'! Hoho! Auf! Wer ist der Frevler?"

Track length8:09

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene VII, "Nun sag': nichts weisst du, was ich dich frage"

Track length7:40

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene VIII, "Vom Bade kehrt der Koenig heim"

Track length2:09

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act I, Scene IX, "Verwandlungsmusik"

Track length3:44

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act I, Scene X, "Nun achte wohl, und lass mich sehn"

Track length7:17

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act I, Scene XI, "Mein Sohn, Amfortas, bist du am Amt?"

Track length10:59

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act I, Scene XII, "Enthuellet den Gral!"

Track length6:57

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act I, Scene XIII, "Wein und Brot des letzten Mahles"

Track length12:24

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act II, Scene I, Vorspiel - Prelude

Track length1:38

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene II, "Die Zeit ist da"

Track length4:04

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene III, "Ach! Ach! Tiefe Nacht!"

Track length10:14

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act II, Scene IV, "Hier war das Tosen! Hier, hier!"

Track length3:58

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene V, "Komm'! Komm'! Holder Knabe!"

Track length5:29

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene VI, "Parsifal! Weile!"

Track length2:54

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene VII, "Dies alles hab' ich nun getraeumt?"

Track length3:23

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene VIII, "Ich sah das Kind an seiner Mutter Brust"

Track length5:29

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene IX, "Wehe! Wehe! Was tat ich? Wo war ich?"

Track length4:43

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act II, Scene X, "Amfortas! Die Wunde! Die Wunde!"

Track length8:36

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act II, Scene XI, "Grausamer! Fuehlst du im Herzen nur and'rer Schmerzen"

Track length12:43

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act II, Scene XII, "Vergeh, unseliges Weib!"

Track length4:14

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene I, Vorspiel - Prelude

Track length5:42

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene II, "Von dorther kam das Stoehnen"

Track length8:50

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act III, Scene III, "Heil dir, mein Gast!"

Track length6:18

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene IV, "Heil mir, dass ich dich wiederfinde!"

Track length12:22

$1.40

$1.75

$2.05

Act III, Scene V, "Nicht so! Die heil'ge Quelle selbst erquicke unsres Pilgers Bad"

Track length13:15

$1.60

$2.00

$2.35

Act III, Scene VI, "Du siehst, das ist nicht so"

Track length7:13

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act III, Scene VII, "Mittag. Die Stund' ist da"

Track length4:29

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene VIII, "Geleiten wir im bergenden Schrein den Gral zum heiligen Amte"

Track length3:45

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene IX, "Ja! Wehe! Wehe! Weh' ueber mich!"

Track length7:15

$1.20

$1.50

$1.75

Act III, Scene X, "Nur eine Waffe taugt"

Track length3:58

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

Act III, Scene XI, "Hoechsten Heiles Wunder!"

Track length5:27

$1.00

$1.25

$1.45

About
Reviews
Videos
Explore

About

Recording of the Week, Wagner's Parsifal from the Mariinsky and Gergiev

20th September 2010

Taken from live performances in St Petersburg last June, Gergiev’s vividly theatrical reading of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel stars Gary Lehman as the titular ‘holy fool’, Violeta Urmana as Kundry, and René Pape as Gurnemanz.

DSD Recording, Mariinsky Concert Hall, St Petersburg, 5–13 June 2009.

The Mariinsky label’s first recording of an opera by Wagner features an exceptional international cast led by René Pape, Gary Lehman and Violeta Urmana.

The Mariinsky Theatre has a long association with Wagner’s music. The composer himself conducted at the Theatre, which in 1863 was the location of the first performance of music from his as yet unstaged Ring Cycle. Over the past decade Valery Gergiev has become a frequent conductor of Wagner’s operas, establishing a formidable reputation in the repertoire, although remarkably this is his first recording of the composer’s operas.

Wagner described his final complete opera as a ‘A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage’ and the work has always sparked controversy, mixing moral and religious themes with music of irresistible sumptuousness. The opera was inspired by Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Arthurian poem Parzifal. Yet despite the story’s overt Christian imagery, Wagner also draws on ideas from other beliefs including Buddhism. The ‘harmonic experiments’ that he adopted for his previous opera Tristan und Isolde are further refined to create music of astonishing beauty that still retains and reflects the deep morality of the tale.

Recording took place between 5 and 13 June 2009 at the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St Petersburg, incorporating live concert performances. It was recorded in high resolution multi-channel DSD by award-winning producer James Mallinson and engineered by John Newton and Dirk Sobotka. Parsifal will be the fourth opera on the Mariinsky label. Previous releases have included Shostakovich’s The Nose, Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, which have collected numerous international awards. The Nose, the label’s debut release, also received two Grammy Award nominations.

Sung in German, Notes in Russian (cyrillic), English, French and German.

Libretto in German with Russian (cyrillic), English & French translations.

“Above all, this is Gergiev's Parsifal and it is the superlatively good playing of the Mariinsky Orchestra that, with René Pape's gloriously sung Gurnemanz, makes this new set essential listening for Wagnerians” Hugh Canning , IRR September

Reviews

October 2010

What really distinguishes this...is Gergiev. His reading is vivid and luminous, generally expansive but with fluidly shifting tempos, unashamedly guilty of theatrical excitement. Yet he evokes a rapt quality which does convey an authentic spirituality - passionate 'Russian soul', perhaps, rather than sombre Germanic brooding, but if so, so much the better.

December 2010

[Gergiev delivers] a reading full of emotional intensity and he's helped by an impressive team of soloists. Gary Lehman is powerfully clarion-like in the title role and Rene Pape is an authoritative Gurnemanz...Urmana's Kundry, full of self-loathing, passion and longing, is hard to forget.

... it’s for René Pape’s majestic Gurnemanz that Wagnerites will want this set. Violeta Urmana’s Kundry is unexpectedly voluptuous, while Gary Lehman makes a conscientious Parsifal...sceptics should be won over by the way his wonderful orchestra and chorus bring Wagner’s problematic swansong to life.

Awards Issue 2010

...on grounds of the general excellence of its singers and the cumulative authority of the interpretation, this is a performance to be reckoned with...it has an imaginative force, overall, which pushes any hints of contrivance to the musical and dramatic margins.

September 2010

Above all, this is Gergiev's Parsifal and it is the superlatively good playing of the Mariinsky Orchestra that, with Pape's gloriously sung Gurnemanz, makes this new set essential listening for Wagnerians...[Pape's] beautifully rounded tone and poetic diction make musical highlights of his long monologues

26th August 2010

The great strengths of his performances in the theatre here underpin at least one remarkable performance: René Pape's outstanding Gurnemanz. Gary Lehman's Parsifal is competent, while Violeta Urmana's Kundry mixes thrilling moments with unstable ones. Gergiev's conducting is more than sufficient compensation for those minor shortcomings, though.

His approach is vigorously dramatic and red-blooded, treating this massive score as an urgent call to arms rather than a dreamy meditation. The Mariinsky Orchestra plays with glowing commitment throughout...Lehman is an agreeably youthful Parsifal, bright in voice and clear in diction...Evgeny Nikitin and Nikolai Putilin bring a distinctively Russian intonation to Amfortas and Klingsor.

New York Times 26th November 2010

a glowing, spacious, near-flawless performance. The solid cast, headed by the tenor Gary Lehman as Parsifal, includes the greatest Gurnemanz of our time: the bass René Pape, in resplendent voice.

Videos

An error occurred.

Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.

Wagner: Parsifal

Downloads

Contents

Recording of the Week, Wagner's Parsifal from the Mariinsky and Gergiev

Download queue