An unforgettable Parsifal in Berlin

By Hugo Shirley, 07 April 2018

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“one of the most gripping and moving performances of Wagner’s great Bühnenweihfestspiel I’ve seen”

Reviewed at Philharmonie: Großer Saal, Berlin on 6 April 2018

Wagner, Parsifal

Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor

Stuart Skelton, Parsifal

Nina Stemme, Kundry

Gerald Finley, Amfortas

Evgeny Nikitin, Klingsor

Franz-Josef Selig, Gurnemanz

Reinhard Hagen, Titurel

Neal Cooper, First knight of the Grail, Third squire

Berliner Philharmoniker

Iwona Sobotka, Soprano

Kiandra Howarth, Soprano

Elisabeth Jansson, Mezzo-soprano

Mari Eriksmoen, Soprano

Ingeborg Gillebo, Mezzo-soprano

Kismara Pessatti, Mezzo-soprano

Rundfunkchor Berlin

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****1

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Hugo Shirley

Hugo Shirley is a Berlin-based writer and musicologist. He has written widely as a critic in the UK, including for The Spectator, the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, and has held editorial posts at both Opera and Gramophone. He was editor of 30-Second Opera (Ivy Press, 2015) and has a PhD in musicology from King's College London, where his thesis focused on Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

An unforgettable Parsifal from Rattle, the Berlin Phil and a world-beating cast