OPERA REVIEW: Parsifal - The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

When Opera North began its acclaimed ‘concert performance’ Ring Cycle in 2011, it was considered a sign of the times: large-scale operatic works were now beyond the reach of regional companies and audiences would have to make do with productions without decor in which the singers ‘stood and delivered’ in front of the orchestra. In practice, by removing the need for a ‘production’ with all the associated conceptual and political baggage, the Opera North Ring returned the emphasis to Wagner’s libretto and the interactions between the characters. Audiences were relieved and delighted to be able to engage with the score once again, without a director’s ‘concept’ getting in the way. The company took note and proceeded with a ‘concert’ Der Fliegende Hollander and had announced this concert Parsifal before COVID intervened.

This Parsifal is well worth the wait; helmed once again by the company’s former Musical Director, Richard Farnes, with direction by Sam Brown, it encapsulates the same virtues as the Ring Cycle: an emphasis on musical values and clear storytelling, with dramatically committed performances from the singers, most of them making their role debuts. Principal among them - not the title role, but the largest role in terms of sung text - was Brindley Sherratt’s Gurnemanz, the grizzled veteran Grail knight, on whose broad shoulders Wagner places most of his exposition. This can be a thankless role for an uninvolved singer, or one who fails to find stimulation in the text, but Sherratt’s bass cut through the densest of Wagner’s orchestration with impeccable clarity and searing intelligence. On this evidence, he certainly has the presence to inhabit the role in a full stage production, and I’m sure he’ll get the chance soon.

Other singers, though just as engaging, may have lacked the necessary vocal heft to ride over the heaviest orchestral tuttis and there were times when Toby Spence’s Parsifal couldn’t quite rise above the tidal waves of the score; but he did present an engaging portrayal of the ‘pure fool’ who finally returns the spear that pierced the side of Christ to the Grail knights and by the conclusion he has certainly transformed from the brash, swan-killing lout of the first act.

Elsewhere, Robert Hayward brought appropriately elegant phrasing to Amfortas’s agony in Act 1’s Grail scene and Katarina Karneus was a vivid Kundry, not quite as feral as some, but confident as the seductress of Act 2. Australian bass Derek Walton was an incisively villainous Klingsor and Stephen Richardson made the most of his brief spot as Titurel.

But the undoubted stars of the performance were the Opera North Orchestra and Chorus, whose rendering of the score under Farnes was as good as any that could be heard in any opera house today: they illuminated all of Wagner’s colours and cadences as only a great orchestra can.

Reviewer - Paul Ashcroft
on - 12.6.22