On paper, the idea of Sir Simon Rattle conducting Parsifal with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus would seem like a must hear. The ink started to smudge when one noticed that the director was octogenarian Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel regisseur Dieter Dorn. Dorn’s Modernist/geometric production of Tristan at the Met in 2003 gave rise to a lawsuit and his last major operatic offering was Idomeneo in Munich ten years ago.
Only a few minutes into the celestial vorspiel, it was evident that like most Regietheater directors, Dorn was not content to let the music speak for itself. The curtain quickly opened to reveal Kundry in foetal position on a bare stage. Magdalena Gut’s set design then came into play, which consisted of multiple wooden wedges of varying sizes constantly pushed around the stage for no particular purpose. One expected them to miraculously align to form some clever structure but that never happens.
Monika Staykova’s costumes made the Grail fraternity look like scruffy panhandlers with lengths of moth-eaten curtain fabric draped over their shoulders. When admonishing Parsifal for killing a holy swan, there wasn’t a sword in sight – the impoverished knights merely poked sticks at the errant cygneticide. Admittedly Kundry shares a fondness for snoozing with Erda but the latter is a subterranean savant and the former, at least according to Gurnemanz, is almost as dumb as Parsifal. Nevertheless, Dorn has Kundry materialize on almost every occasion from beneath the Festspielhaus stage as if a moody Earth Mother.
The Great Hall of Monsalvat was formed by reversing two of the larger wedges so that the knights gathered behind giant advertising hoardings. The communion wine was served in earthenware pitchers straight out of Cavalleria rusticana and the Host was large round loaves of bread presumably from Baden-Baden’s Brezelbäckerei Ditsch up the road. No wonder Parsifal was unimpressed. Klingsor’s magic garden was neither enchanted nor botanical and bore no resemblance at all to the Palazzo Rufolo in Ravello which was Wagner’s stated inspiration. As Grail HQ in Act One was already just a few slanting wedges of plywood, the deterioration of the knight’s domain in Act Three was indiscernible.
The singing was much better than Dorn’s rebarbative direction although the Flower Maidens could have been in better vocal bloom. At 78, distinguished British bass Robert Lloyd displayed remarkable projection and exemplary diction as the failing Titurel. Looking like a gothic Orc, Evgeny Nikitin had the requisite malevolence and snarly low register to be a credible Klingsor. Gerald Finley was convincing in portraying Amfortas’ physical and psychological suffering although occasionally a tad too hysterical. Dorn has Amfortas’ unheal-able wound situated on his genitals, meaning that revealing “die offene Wunde hier!” required Finley to do the “full Monty”. The chaste knights were no less shocked than the Baden-Baden Hautevolee.