# What about the 1987 Bayreuth Parsifal by Barenboim?



## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Just listening to it at the moment 





I think Barenboim is a great Wagner conducter, but tell me your take about the cast and production in general.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Also, act 2 of Parsifal is the most beautiful work of music ever created, right? I don't even have words to say how astonishing it is.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gallus said:


> Also, act 2 of Parsifal is the most beautiful work of music ever created, right? I don't even have words to say how astonishing it is.


Astonishing, yes, but often too disturbing and scary to be described as "beautiful," unless we define that word very broadly. For me _Parsifal_ contains some of the most sublimely beautiful music ever composed as well as some of the darkest and most unsettling, and it's the way Wagner both contrasts and interweaves these contraries that makes it unique and fascinating.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

This act 2 is very powerful. I have a couple of reservations about the tempi; I like the flower maidens' waltz a mite slower - it sounds breathless here rather than seductive - and in the first part of the Kundry-Parsifal scene things almost grind to a halt. Barenboim is otherwise sensitive and strong, and the singers are all deep in their roles. Waltraud Meier handles Kundry's high-lying passages quite comfortably for one who bills herself a mezzo, and misses nothing in the text. I particularly like her use of portamento; very sensual and seductive. Siegfried Jerusalem summons great intensity without ever distorting his handsome and appropriately youthful voice. The act builds excitingly to its conclusion, where Barenboim gives the final, great orchestral wail of pain an extraordinary poignancy. I'm eager to hear acts 1 and 3.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Gallus said:


> Also, act 2 of Parsifal is the most beautiful work of music ever created, right? I don't even have words to say how astonishing it is.


As you couldn't. If Wagner could have communicated what he wanted to through words alone, he would have been a poet or philosopher. Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk succeeds in communicating the essential divine essence in which words alone would fail us.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

On another note, when Kundry first calls out Parsifal by name, must be one the finest dramatic moments ever conceived. Up there with "To be, or not to be".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> On another note, when Kundry first calls out Parsifal by name, must be one the finest dramatic moments ever conceived. Up there with "To be, or not to be".


It's magic. Listening to the music, even without staging, you can feel the air stop moving, see Parsifal's body freeze, and hear his heart beat in the stillness.


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