Parsifal, Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Power and sensuality in the magic garden

By Raymond Monelle

14 August 2002

Apart from a Castle of Monsalvat that was evidently a special offer at Ikea, Peter Stein's Parsifal is one hundred per cent realistic: real armour, real medieval costumes, a real forest (painted effectively on scrims), and a real dead swan. The Holy Grail glows luridly, just as Amfortas says it does. And the magic garden is laid out with a box hedge maze, presumably moral as well as horticultural.

The designer, Gianni Dessi, has taken his ideas from Romantic prints, reminding us of that pretty, unthreatening heroism that finally bit the dust at the Somme. Of course, this is "echt" Wagner. It's all in the stage directions. Equally Wagnerian were the voices; this was full strength casting, bringing to mind those classic Parsifals of old, with Thomas Moser sounding like a new Windgassen, clear, vital, a bit baritonal in the low register; and Violeta Urmana (Kundry) suggesting a new Astrid Varnay. This fabulous artist combines dramatic power and sensual caress; she moves so convincingly that you find yourself believing in a woman both submissive and threatening, a femme fatale who at last dissolves into penitence.

Amfortas can seem a bit of a lemon, but Albert Dohmen has focus and authority; and Hans Tschammer made the most of Gurnemanz's warm benevolence. Wagner's directions were taken literally, even in respect of the pages in the communion scene; normally these are trousered females, but Stein had conscripted the Tölzer Knabenchor, excellent male trebles whose heavenly tones brought to mind an English cathedral.

The trouble with hyper-realism is that it can seem not quite grown up. The problems started in Act II. Klingsor (Eike Wilm Schulte), looking like a harem servant (he is a eunuch), conjured up a few coloured magnesium flares, Kundry appeared through a trapdoor, and away we went on the Road to Bayreuth with Bob Hope. The Flower Maidens looked asphyxiatingly pretty in pastel frocks, but they presented no kind of sexual threat; they were every middle-class male's image of desirability, simply something to ravish rather than something that might shipwreck your life.

Claudio Abbado directed with magnificent, sprawling breadth, and the young players of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester held on by their fingertips. Abbado had imported enormous real bells for the famous bell motif; good on first hearing but too apt to shroud the orchestra in upper partials. With all this musical and vocal muscle, this had to be a moving and enlightening performance, in spite of sliding towards comedy at times.