Cheap Wagner - Parsifal / Levine, Weikl, Mazura, Metropolitan Opera (DVD) (Brian Large) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Wagner - Parsifal / Levine, Weikl, Mazura, Metropolitan Opera

The Parsifal DVD to have
There are currently only two versions of Parsifal available on DVD and this video of a Metropolitan Opera production is better musically than Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's movie version which is lip-synched by actors as well as opera singers. While Syberberg's movie is more politically and sexually charged (the flower maidens are naked) and his sets are quite imaginative, the Prague Philharmonic doesn't match the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra nor do the singers come up to the Met's cast.

This video is of a March 1992 production at the MET. The sets are naturalistic and conservative but very impressive. Having seen the production live I can say that the video does a good job of capturing it. Audience noise is minimal but the crowd insists on clapping before the music stops at the end of Act II - a regular, if annoying, ritual at the MET. Some portions of the orchestral shots appear to have been made without an audience present - the spectacular camera angles taken from a boom hovering over the orchestra could never haven been filmed during an actual performance. A minor quibble - the offstage chorus at the end of Act I sounds off the beat and out of tune. They are better at the end of Act III.

The SOUND on this DVD is superb. It is offered in PCM stereo, DOLBY DIGITAL, and DTS. Playback in DOLBY DIGITAL is natural with deep but not obtrusive bass; also there is no artifically distracting audio coming from the rear speakers. Presumably DTS is even better but I don't have it.

The picture is free of video artifacts, colors natural, and the image is especially detailed in scenes where the cameras were precisely in focus (quite a feat during a live opera production). Annoying was a break in the audio along with a jump in the picture in the middle of Act I on disc 1 and near the end of the orchestral prelude to Act III on disc 2. I believe this is indicative of the laser beam moving from one layer of the disc to another and may not be noticeable on newer DVD players. But the one in Act III could have been more judiciously placed.

The big question is LASER DISC versus DVD. Comparing the two with an S-video connection activated (I don't have component video) the DVD version is sharper (you can clearly see the notes on the music sheets in the orchestra) and MOST IMPORTANT, free of video noise - little white and colored dots that show up in particularly dark scenes. Sonically the DOLBY DIGITAL is not that noticable a difference over the LASER sound - if it were it would probably create too obtrusive a bass response. If you own the LASER you probably spent $60 for it several years ago and are wondering if the DVD is worth it. If you want a artifact-free picture, it definitely is.

---

Onward and Upward!
Some years back,a popular PBS crime series "Inspector Morse" ended. The inspector in question was a lover of opera and classical music. He suffered a sudden fatal heart attack. As he lay at peace in the hospital bed, the opening bars of the prelude to Wagner's Parsifal played. Momentarily,I was transcended. This ethereal music always has this effect on me.
I find only 2 problems with the acting in this drama. Vocally,the production is a masterpiece. Waltraud Mier's Kundry wasn't wild enough and Franz Mazura's Klingsor wasn't menacing enough.That said,on to the good stuff!
The great Kurt Moll as Gurnemanz is the standout here.His voice is so perfect and beautiful.I wish he had recorded a Wotan.
He is a fantastic Sarastro in DG "The Magic Flute".
ActIII is the one I most enjoyed. The healing of Amfortas and the ascension of the former "fool" Parsifal to power were breathtaking. With Wagner,it's so much more about the music than the vocals. This music is glorious. The Met Opera orchestra deserves special thanks for this tremendous achievement.

---

ABSOLUTELY STUNNING - An Exerience of Music and the Sacred
For me anyhow - this is Wagner's greatest gift - even better than the the Nibelung. Having played excerpts form the opera in amauture orchestral venues -- I can say that this work is "Erlebnis" (Experience). At once Wagner captures the piety of medieval Europe (now but a dim memory in an almost completely secular place), the foundational reverence of the Holy Sacrament, and essence of Christian grace. All of this with combined with was has to be one of the most moving musical scores of German romanticism. And thank you Met. Opera and James Levine for both re-igniting TRADITIONAL Wagnerian vision/stagings (and not those rancid "revisionist" directions), and making such respectable again.