# Parsifal streaming today (?)



## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

https://www.br-klassik.de/concert/ausstrahlung-775304.html


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Based on the screenshot, it seems that they will not be shying away from the work's religious overtones.

Do you know if it will be available for streaming later, or only webcast live?


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I have no idea.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

They're going to live stream it at no charge? But only available in Germany?


The streaming radio works in America, anyway. The video stream is set to start in a little over 4 hours, if I am reading the countdown correctly. Guess I will try it then.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

The video stream is in the middle of act 2 now. Excellent quality.  If it's available in America, I don't know.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

interestedin said:


> The video stream is in the middle of act 2 now. Excellent quality.  If it's available in America, I don't know.


Nice!

I am going to guess it will work for me because it has adjusted the start time to be 4pm in my time zone.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

Scopitone said:


> Nice!
> 
> I am going to guess it will work for me because it has adjusted the start time to be 4pm in my time zone.


If not, I'm sure someone will upload it on youtube like that Tristan of last year.

Act 2 just over...the audience seems to be very satisfied with Vogt & Pankratova...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Doesn't start for 5 hours here... not so Live I guess


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

It seems like the countdown is based on your computer's time. Some people have reported being able to watch (in the UK/Americas) by changing the time zone setting on their computer.

I, too, am hoping that there is some sort of delayed streaming for other time zones, but I'm not hopeful.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I get nothing but a message: _Der Inhalt kann leider nicht abgespielt werden_. Drat.


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

It didn't work for me, either. 

No worries. I have a Parsifal blu on order anyway, and it will likely have subtitles.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Didn't work for me either.
Rats!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Balthazar said:


> Based on the screenshot, it seems that they will not be shying away from the work's religious overtones.
> 
> Do you know if it will be available for streaming later, or only webcast live?


The man is catching a cold in this way.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

It's there now

http://www.br.de/mediathek/video/20...-bayreuther-festspiele-konzert-video-104.html


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## Ginger (Jul 14, 2016)

sospiro said:


> It's there now
> 
> http://www.br.de/mediathek/video/20...-bayreuther-festspiele-konzert-video-104.html


Ah they have finally managed to load up all parts. My evening is saved...


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I'm two acts in. There's a lot I like about this product, and a lot that is puzzling.

The first act was a Christian-heavy take, especially with Amfortas dressed as Christ. Stabbing the wound in the side and collecting the blood from Amfortas was something. It was also really odd seeing Titurel on stage; it doesn't really fit with what he says, but it is otherwise effective.

One thing that stuck out was carrying in the giant crucifix (looking forward to carrying in Amfortas), and removed the image of Christ before putting the cross back up.

The first act was directed well, people generally moved with clear purpose, and coherently (though the squires wander off during Gurnemanz's monologue). In the second act both Kundry and then Parsifal left during the a monologue by the other, returning in an earlier costume. There was purpose to the costuming, but you lose that they're talking to each other. Or, I suppose, it suggests that they're talking mostly to themselves rather than thinking of each other.

Klingsor was a strange mix. He also seemed to be about to pray, positioning his musallah towards the sun, though he interrupts himself before he continues. His castle had Arabic tiles, and the flower maidens were covered in black, and then dressed in variations on the bedlah style. He also has his collection of crucifixes, and practices self-flagellation (using the cattail whip over the shoulder suggests Catholic practice, as does the crucifixes).

Amfortas being present at Klingsor's castle was also quite odd, but an interesting idea. He is metaphorically held captive by Klingsor, though it was not clear to me what the approach actually was. 

Klingsor's crucifixes seemed to mostly have their Jesus on them. After Parsifal broke the spear, though, crosses - sans-Jesus - fell, suggesting perhaps that what Parsifal is doing is separating Jesus from redemption, or maybe the continual suffering. I'm interested to see if this is where the production goes. I do believe this is supportable by the opera, as Amfortas really is associated with a Christ-figure (though not always that strongly), he has failed, and Parsifal displaces him.

Klaus Florian Vogt plays the fool very well, and there was a lot to his performance in his confrontation with Kundry, though I'd like to hear more. Georg Zeppenfield sounds wonderful, though he didn't seem like enough of a presence on stage, he's dressed differently but doesn't tower over the knights and squires. Elena Pankratova was really fantastic, though there's some odd direction with where she goes/what she does when she's not singing.


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)

You can listen to this year's first Bayreuth Ring live (audio only):

http://en.romania-muzical.ro/artico...-wagner-25-iulie-1-august-2016/1418051/3001/1

The valkyries are riding right now. And contrary to that Romanian website that's not Wilson but Melton.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mountmccabe said:


> I'm two acts in. There's a lot I like about this product, and a lot that is puzzling.
> 
> .


I'm just puzzled how this is being put on at Bayreuth, the home of Wagner opera. Whatever our opinions of the meaning of Parsifal, it is helpful if it is done as Wagner intended, not as some hack has interpreted it for his own preconceptions. If I had paid good money to see this I would be demanding it back as I don't believe it is Wagner's Parsifal


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Listened to Act 1, couldn't find a link for Act 2, but wasn't feeling that motivated for it either.

Vogt as Parsifal is fine, his usual pretty choirboy sounding performance. I prefer bigger, more heroic voices for the roles he tends to take though. The Gurnemanz is also pretty good, although again, his voice seems a little light and high for the role. The Kundry seemed promising from what little she has in Act 1. The Amfortas was pretty mediocre. 

Haenchen conducts Wagner very fast and light--it kind of reminds me of Janowski's approach except maybe even more underplayed. Transparent textures, emphasis on clarity, but the big moments didn't hit very hard and seemed perfunctory at times. Also seemed pretty poorly played by the band--Haenchen was a last minute fill in so I don't really blame him for that but it's worth noting.

The video that played during the Transformation music looked extremely dated--it was like 2006 video game level quality. I'd suggest that it's a bad idea to do computer animation unless it can be done a lot better; otherwise, use lights and sets or still images or simpler video. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the Amfortas as Jesus thing, or the blood ritual with them pouring his blood into the grail and all the knights drinking from it... Maybe I have to watch the rest to see how that develops, but again, I'm not feeling that motivated to seek the rest out.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Having just watched the entire performance of Uwe Erik Laufenberg's _Parsifal_ - I mean, Wagner's _Parsifal_ (or do I?) - from Bayreuth, I have to say that the biggest surprise to me is that the sublimity of its music overwhelmed me despite what happened, or failed to happen, onstage. Despite a few interesting details, there are no great depths to discover in this production. "Religion is bad, let's get beyond it" pretty well sums it up.

The action opens right after the prelude begins (it seems obligatory now to do something during Wagner's preludes, as if music isn't enough to keep us interested). The first act takes place in an old church building, occupied by a Christian brotherhood, somewhere in the Middle East in modern times (the knights drink water from plastic bottles). At one point a bunch of men in military camouflage and carrying machine guns enter, look around, and leave again, so we gather that the area is not safe. Kundry is dressed in a black Burqa with only her face exposed. She looks pretty matter of fact about things; we wouldn't think she was anyone peculiar, much less under a curse or a magician's power. Just before Parsifal comes in a little boy runs in and faints; we don't know who he is. At one point a man and and a woman have a little struggle and she runs out. We don't know who they are either. Nothing else peculiar happens until the transformation music, during which we have to watch a video about outer space until we get to the Grail ceremony. In this, Titurel is present and on his feet rather than in a crypt. Instead of being carried in on a litter and placed before the Grail, which here is just a little cup sitting out in the open, Amfortas walks in wearing a crown of thorns and a white robe, strips down to a loin cloth, and stands in a crucified pose with stigmata in his hands. His wound is reopened by his knights, who stick a knife into it, whereupon blood runs out of every part of his body and is collected and drunk by the knights in place of the symbolic blood of Christ.

In the second act we see Klingsor, dressed in a suit, presiding over his harem in a building decorated in Arabian style, but without the magician's equipment that would represent the black arts. He puts down a prayer rug and tries, but fails, to pray to Allah, apparently forgetting which way is Mecca. He has a gallery full of crucifixes (one of which has a phallus at one end, which he fondles), he flagellates himself with a whip (evidently torn between Islam and Christianity and feeling bad about it), and he keeps his call girls in black burqas until their favors are needed. For some reason Amfortas is present, bound as a prisoner, throughout the second act, and at one point while Parsifal is undergoing his crisis Kundry and Amfortas have sex on a tabletop. When Parsifal takes the spear from Klingsor he breaks it in half and makes a cross out of it. As he leaves all of Klingsor's crucifixes come crashing down.

During the third act prelude we watch a nice nature video, the agonized music accompanying lovely closeups of green leaves in the rain. Then we're back in the church. Gurnemanz now uses a wheelchair, and Kundry is an old crone who appears unwell and miserable. Parsifal comes in carrying a machine gun and the crossy thing he made out of the broken spear. Nothing much happens until the Good Friday music, when a giant leafy branch creeps across the stage and water falls in the background; the flower maidens enter in modern dress and cavort under the waterfall, one of them naked, and some other unidentified people gather, and everyone (except Kundry, who sits in the wheelchair) looks happy. In the final scene, Parsifal enters but doesn't use the spear to touch Amfortas' wound, and when it's time to uncover the Grail a bunch of people carrying symbols of Christianity, Judaism and Islam all lay their sacred objects in Titurel's coffin (the spear ends up there too) and then wander off into a glowing cloud. I didn't see what happened to Kundry; maybe the flower maidens wheeled her off to a nursing home. The Grail seems to have vanished too; Parsifal sings the words asking for it to be unveiled, but it fails to appear and he just stands there doing nothing and looking wide-eyed and lost (which is pretty much the way he looks through the whole production), and nobody pays much attention to him - understandably, as he seems not to have accomplished anything. When everyone has wandered off into the cloud, we're left to gaze at the coffin full of religious artifacts for quite a while after the music has ended. Clearly Laufenberg doesn't want us to applaud before we've had ample time to get his message.

There was muttering about his production being anti-Islamic, but I didn't see anything suggesting that. It just seems anti-religious in a superficial and gimmicky way, though I suppose it's meant to be "topical," with everyone giving up their religious bigotry and making peace in the Middle East. The director has said something about examining Wagner's view of Christianity. Well, Wagner's condemnation of institutional religion, its dogmas and power structures, and his stated wish to reveal the deep significance of religious symbols (rather than to condemn them as nonsense), is very much present in the work as he conceived it. Perceiving that, of course, requires sensitivity, attention, and thought on our part, and when we actually look at the opera we can discover even richer meaning in it. This production certainly provokes thought, but is likely to disappoint us when we realize that it has less - far less - to tell us than Wagner does.


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## anmhe (Feb 10, 2015)

I enjoyed a lot of it, but found the music rushed at times (the flower maiden scene in particular). Georg Zeppenfeld was the exact right choice for Gurnemanz.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

mountmccabe said:


> Klingsor's crucifixes seemed to mostly have their Jesus on them. After Parsifal broke the spear, though, crosses - sans-Jesus - fell, suggesting perhaps that what Parsifal is doing is separating Jesus from redemption, or maybe the continual suffering. I'm interested to see if this is where the production goes. I do believe this is supportable by the opera, as Amfortas really is associated with a Christ-figure (though not always that strongly), he has failed, and Parsifal displaces him.
> 
> Klaus Florian Vogt plays the fool very well, and there was a lot to his performance in his confrontation with Kundry, though I'd like to hear more. Georg Zeppenfield sounds wonderful, though he didn't seem like enough of a presence on stage, he's dressed differently but doesn't tower over the knights and squires. Elena Pankratova was really fantastic, though there's some odd direction with where she goes/what she does when she's not singing.


I finally was able to watch the final act. Zeppenfeld impressed me more today, with his detailed portrayal of Gurnemanz; I will pay close attention to him when I rewatch the first act.

Anyway, I liked seeing Gurnemanz and Kundry actually aged for the third act; a lot of time has passed, and it shows! The surrounding plants have become overgrown, and everything looks green.

For the first part, I was mostly surprised by how closely the action follows the text. I mean, yes, if one wants everything as written with no deviation, this is not that, but compared to most other versions - and especially the Herheim production this replaces - they play it straight. Parsifal arrives in black armor, even if it is of the modern military. Kundry washes Parsifal's feet and Gurnemanz anoints his head.

We see the flower maidens during the Karfreitags-Zauber, when they are mentioned. This passage is about renewal, cleansing, and that's what we see.

This is a common theme throughout this production; in act one we see Titurel when he is discussed, in act two we see Amfortas, and while him and Kundry re-enacting/revisiting their sexing doesn't work for me, up until then it really cements the connection between Amfortas and Jesus. And, again, this is not new, this is in the text.

The projection of faces always looks bad to me. We get Kundry, Amfortas or Titurel (I can't tell; Amfortas in the third act looks a lot like Titurel in the first), and Wagner. It might have made a little more sense to me if it had been Gurnemanz with Kundry, as we don't see either of them again.

The Christian-styled people carry out Titurel's coffin and sing the second procession; the first male chorus is sung by the representatives of other religions - Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, possibly others - and this back-and-forth is played as a conflict between religious groups (which it is, even if not in this fashion).

When Amfortas stumbles out I at first thought it was Titurel; he, too has aged appropriately. He recognizes what he did to Titurel - he starts to show compassion, empathy - but he doesn't have a way forward. He still longs for death, for release.

Parsifal arrives with the spear (but without Gurnemanz and Kundry). Amfortas takes the spear, even if he doesn't touch it to his wound, his demeanor is changed.

Parsifal takes the spear back, takes it apart, and places the pieces in Titurel's coffin, which is taking the place of the grail. He calls for the grail to be uncovered and this is taken poetically and everyone copies Parsifal, depositing their artifacts and idols in the coffin. Amfortas starts with his crucifixes. A wide variety of items are deposited by the crowd, including a book, statues of Buddha and Ganesh.

Also not all religious effects are left behind, people retain their kippah (yarmulke), taqiyah, tallit, and other items. They do not leave religion completely behind; but more than just this barbaric ritual.


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## anmhe (Feb 10, 2015)

mountmccabe said:


> I finally was able to watch the final act. Zeppenfeld impressed me more today, with his detailed portrayal of Gurnemanz; I will pay close attention to him when I rewatch the first act.
> 
> Anyway, I liked seeing Gurnemanz and Kundry actually aged for the third act; a lot of time has passed, and it shows! The surrounding plants have become overgrown, and everything looks green.
> 
> ...


I'm in agreement with you. Allow me to add that my only real problem with the production was showing the exact location of Montsalvat. I understood what they were going for, but Montsalvat's exact location (as opposed to the general area or country) should always be a mystery to the viewer.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Laufenberg _Parsifal_ is far from the worst travesty of Wagner I've seen, but that only shows how low we've sunk.


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