Medieval Tour de Force

reedom it was from the gloom and doom of the times, which will take one to the captivity of the undeservedly infamous Wagner’s Parsifal.
A still from 'Parsifal'
A still from 'Parsifal'

The virtual music space’s music-is-free counterculture has found its classical rival in the Metropolitan Opera. From March onwards it has been streaming performances for free. Freedom it was from the gloom and doom of the times, taking me to the captivity of the undeservedly infamous Wagner’s Parsifal—the Nazis saw in him the virtues of the Aryan race and knighthood.

The three-act opera—first presented in 1882—was inspired by the 13th century epic poem by knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach recounting the eponymous knight’s quest for the Holy Grail—a very English concept for a German.

The deeply flawed King Amfortas, keeper of the Holy Spear which wounded Christ, is physically and mentally tortured by its loss until Sir Parsifal’s ‘Holy Fool’ brings redemption through innocent faith. 
It is eerie to see the curtain rising on my iPad screen—the new normal.

Italian composer Daniel Gatti has manipulated the idiom of contrast: light and darkness, tenor and bass, black and white, starting with notes ascending like swans in flight and descending into pastoral arpeggios. The curtain rises on a dark stage on which light falls, slowly, deceptively and languidly.

The cast is present on the stage, but dressed in all black. Bit by bit, they peel off the layers and the white underneath is revelation—from fall to grace, from temptation to redemption. The opera is almost four-and-a-half hours long; but seems to pass too quickly through the emotional anguish of the knight’s epic journey, which saves the king from an unsealing wound. Francois Girard has delivered minimalistic opera: no props, black and white costumes with just a splash of red for blood. It banishes distractions—the actors deliver with full force. 

Parsifal is a re-run of Girard’s 2013 production, conducted by Gatti with Jonas Kaufmann as the tenor. Peter Mattei’s baritone expands Amfortas’s anguish with dark breadth and volume. All art seeks contemporary meaning, which would’ve been heretical in Wagner’s Austro-Hungarian era. The costumes are contemporary. I wish I could’ve watched it live.

Parsifal ended on stage in late February but remains as eternal bytes in a virtual cosmos which would’ve mystified the Middle Age concepts of divimity, chivalry and Christian redemption. Yet, for an opera staged in the 19th century when an iPad would be considered witchcraft, Parisfal enchants with sorcery of its own.

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