Metropolitan Opera Archives

When you recall that Wagner himself ordered the scenery, designed the costumes, chose the singers, set down minute instructions for vocal and histrionic interpretation, and even selected the musical themes for reassembling audiences at Bayreuth following the intermissions, it's a wonder that anyone else has the temerity to attempt to do his operas today, particularly "Parsifal," which was to have been his greatest, as it was his last work. You wonder, too, whether audiences today are as reverential as Wagner believed his to be, or are people coming to accept this form of entertainment on its merits rather than on its carefully fostered reputation.

Taken on its merits, Tuesday night's "Parsifal," seemingly the first performance in Boston since the leading roles were sung by Flagstad, Melchior and Schorr, deserves high marks, particularly from a vocal standpoint. If one needs to be reminded at this late date that the first act is interminably long, and that Gurnemanz is surely the most verbose character even in Wagner, for it is equally true that the music for the first Grail scene is noble and impressive, the Good Friday spell hauntingly lovely and filled with sunshine and joy, and that between them Kundry and Klingsor provide some moments of true dramatic and music excitement. The staging Tuesday night was unfortunately routine and lacking in beauty or imagination, but the singers were good enough to keep the ear if not the eye well satisfied (and Kerstin Thorborg does all right in the later department, too).

The news of the performance was the first appearance here of Emery Darcy, an American singer hitherto limited to secondary roles at the Metropolitan, in the title part. Mr. Darcy, looking considerably like a younger and more agile Melchior, played with a simplicity that escaped pathos, managed to take a considerable interest in what was going on about him and, though unable to remove from Wagner's hero the onus of pigheadedness, his was a generally satisfactory interpretation. His voice is strong, true, and of agreeable quality, while his diction definitely deserves praise. A last minute substitution put Martial Singher in the role of Amfortas, replacing Herbert Janssen. Mr. Singher, who usually appears only in French operas, was deeply moving as the unhappy custodian of the Grail, preserving restraint while suggesting anguish, and he sang his difficult music with deep feeling. Alexander Kipnis made a kindly and benevolent Gurnemanz; Kerstin Thorborg's Kundry went from wild woman to seductress to mute handmaiden with her usual artistry; and Walther Olitzki made a malevolent and vocally effective Klingsor. The flower maidens were agreeably presentable, and Emil Cooper conducted the orchestra intelligently, if not with exceptional brilliance.

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