Three other great recordings
Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
Despite my caveats about DVDS, Barenboim’s 2016 performance from the Schiller Theater in Berlin is to be recommended. The production, by Dmitri Tcherniakov, is beneath contempt, but the musical side of things is the best I have heard in decades – listen and be shaken. One chief source of pleasure is the majestic Gurnemanz of René Pape, a singer with a gorgeous voice, but who I’ve often found running on automatic. Here, he and his colleagues are nearly ideal in one of Barenboim’s most committed interpretations. (Belair BAC128)
Jaap van Zweden (conductor)
Recorded in concert in 2011 is this radiant account from the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with an excellent set of soloists under Jaap van Zweden, who offers a personal and intense view. Klaus Florian Vogt can divide opinion as Parsifal, but his voice seems exactly right for resisting the Kundry of Katarina Dalayman, and even more for assuming the leadership of the Grail knights. Robert Holl as Gurnemanz sounds committed and,
above all, Van Zweden gets each of his singers to dig deeply into their role. (Challenge Classics CC72519)
Reginald Goodall (conductor)
Most recordings of Parsifal have been live, but in 1984 Reginald Goodall, an inconspicuous doyen of Wagner, recorded the work in Swansea with unglamorous forces and at recordbreakingly slow tempos… but to overwhelming effect. The dedication and subtle intensity of this recording put it in a class of its own, and the Welsh National Opera forces cover themselves with glory. With Waltraud Meier making her first of many recordings of Kundry, there is no weak link in the cast, and the choral singing is superb. (EMI 565 6652)
And one to avoid…
Everyone waited eagerly for tenor Jonas Kaufmann to assume the title role of a drama he feels deeply about. Here he is at the
New York Met in
2013 with a distinguished cast, and a mainly tolerable production. Sluggish conducting by Daniele Gatti, however, ensures that we never enter into the drama, and I kept wondering why passage after passage went by without producing its expected effect.