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Wagner - Parsifal

£44.54

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Label: Testament

Cat No: SBT41455

Barcode: 0749677145521

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 4

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 11th January 2010

Works

Wagner, Richard

Parsifal

Artists

Gottlob Frick
Gerda Lammers
Eberhard Waechter
Karl Liebl
Forbes Robinson
Otakar Kraus
Edgar Evans
Joseph Rouleau
Jeannette Sinclair
Lauris Elms
Robert Bowman
Raymond Nilsson
Joan Carlyle
Judith Pearce
Josephine Veasey
Jeanette Sinclair
Mary Wells
Margreta Elkins
The Covent Garden Opera Chorus
Boys from the Choir of St Margaret’s Church Westminster
Students of the Edith Cavell Secondary School
Covent Garden Orchestra

Conductor

Rudolf Kempe

Works

Wagner, Richard

Parsifal

Artists

Conductor

Rudolf Kempe

About

This was Rudolf Kempe’s first Parsifal, and he returned to conduct it in two subsequent revivals, in 1960 and 1966. In general he was regarded extremely warmly by the press and the English public in Wagner and Richard Strauss, though there were dissenting voices. There is no question that Kempe’s approach and his distinction were to conduct Wagner lyrically, to be sparing with climaxes, to revel in orchestral detail (his professional life had begun when he played the oboe in Leipzig under Furtwängler), and to nurture his singers. He was, in those respects, at the opposite end of the spectrum from Knappertsbusch, whose Bayreuth performances were taken by many people as definitive: broad, monumental, with huge climaxes looming from afar, and merciless to singers in any difficulty. Yet Kempe was also criticised for slow tempi, by, for example, Desmond Shawe-Taylor in the Sunday Times, who complained that Act I had seemed endless, because it was lacking in its great clinching climaxes. Others felt that there wasn’t enough noise coming from the pit. But on disc that is hardly likely to be a problem. The climaxes – for instance, the Transformation music in Acts I and III, the crowning of Parsifal in Act III – may not stun as they do under Knappertsbusch, but they are still powerful, detailed, and mainly very finely played.

Reviewers were united in praise of Eberhard Waechter’s Amfortas, though some felt him to be too young. Gottlob Frick, too, earned unstinting praise, and deserved it – how many Wagner performances at Covent Garden he saved with the magnificence of his singing and his simple, intelligent acting!

This may not be the most overwhelming performance of Parsifal, but there are few that rival it in its warm humanity, a cardinal quality of this last masterwork, which is often overlooked by performers and by spectator-listeners.

(from booklet notes by Michael Tanner)

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 16 June 1959

Cast:
- Gurnemanz: Gottlob Frick
- Kundry: Gerda Lammers
- Amfortas: Eberhard Waechter
- Parsifal: Karl Liebl
- Titurel: Forbes Robinson
- Klingsor: Otakar Kraus
- First Knight: Edgar Evans
- Second Knight: Joseph Rouleau
- Four Squires: Jeannette Sinclair, Lauris Elms, Robert Bowman, Raymond Nilsson,
- Flower Maidens: Joan Carlyle, Judith Pierce, Josephine Veasey, Jeannette Sinclair, Mary Wells, Margreta Elkins