Wagner: Parsifal
Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival in 2023
Andreas Schager (Parsifal), Elīna Garanča (Kundry), Georg Zeppenfeld (Gurnemanz), Derek Welton (Amfortas), Jordan Shanahan (Klingsor), Tobias Kehrer (Titurel)
Bayreuther Festspielorchester, Bayreuther Festspielchor, Pablo Heras-Casado
Andreas Schager is a magnificent Parsifal, tireless throughout with an almost lyric style that embraces every turn of the text. Elīna Garanča’s Kundry is at her most resplendent in Act 2 with...
Wagner: Parsifal
Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival in 2023
Andreas Schager (Parsifal), Elīna Garanča (Kundry), Georg Zeppenfeld (Gurnemanz), Derek Welton (Amfortas), Jordan Shanahan (Klingsor), Tobias Kehrer (Titurel)
Bayreuther Festspielorchester, Bayreuther Festspielchor, Pablo Heras-Casado
Purchase product
Andreas Schager is a magnificent Parsifal, tireless throughout with an almost lyric style that embraces every turn of the text. Elīna Garanča’s Kundry is at her most resplendent in Act 2 with...
About
The acclaimed new production of Wagner’s final opera “Parsifal” is “a musical godsend” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) 2023 Bayreuth Festival. The successful and exclusive, multiyear partnership between Deutsche Grammophon and the Bayreuth Festival continues: The Yellow Label is the exclusive audiovisual partner of the mythical Wagner festival, and what was started with the 2015 production of Tristan und Isolde will now see its latest installment, presenting 2023’s new production of Parsifal. For the first time within this cooperation, this recording will be available both as video (2 BluRay Video Set) and audio release (4 CD Set, Digital Album). Previous releases within this partnership include: Tristan und Isolde (2015), Parsifal (2016), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (2017), the Grammy nominated Lohengrin (2018), Tannhäuser (2019), concert Wagner at Wahnfried (2020), Der fliegende Holländer (2021), and Götterdämmerung from the 2022 production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Parsifal, the masterpiece which Wagner solely composed for Bayreuth’s Festspielhaus and which he wanted to be performed nowhere else, was presented in a celebrated new production on the green hill in 2023. Pablo Heras-Casado, who made his Bayreuth debut, was celebrated for his interpretation, as was his splendid cast featuring Andreas Schager, Elīna Garanča, Georg Zeppenfeld and Derek Welton. Stage Director Jay Scheib takes at his word an expression that Wagner used in a letter to King Ludwig II: He stages Parsifal as a “farewell to the world”, a work that faces up to the question of how hope can exist when life has long since ceased to be possible…The 4 CD set includes two booklets, one providing information about the work, its staging in Bayreuth 2023 and photos from the production, the other one including the complete German libretto with English translation. The Blu-ray Video set provides 3 sound formats, including Dolby Atmos, and a booklet with photos and information about the work and this production.
Contents and tracklist
- Georg Zeppenfeld (bass), Siyabonga Maqungo (tenor), Jens-Erik Aasbø (bass), Margaret Plummer (soprano), Betsy Horne (soprano), Elina Garanča (soprano), Derek Welton (baritone), Jorge Rodríguez-Norton (tenor), Garrie Davislim (tenor), Andreas Schager (tenor), Tobias Kehrer (bass), Marie Henriette Reinhold (alto)
- Bayreuther Festspielorchester, Bayreuther Festspielchor
- Pablo Heras-Casado
- Recorded: 2023-07-25
- Recording Venue: Festspielhaus, Bayreuth
- Jordan Shanahan (bass), Elina Garanča (soprano), Evelin Novak (soprano), Camille Schnoor (soprano), Margaret Plummer (soprano), Julia Grüter (soprano), Betsy Horne (soprano), Marie Henriette Reinhold (soprano), Andreas Schager (tenor)
- Bayreuther Festspielorchester
- Pablo Heras-Casado
- Recorded: 2023-07-25
- Recording Venue: Festspielhaus, Bayreuth
- Georg Zeppenfeld (bass), Elina Garanča (soprano), Andreas Schager (tenor), Derek Welton (baritone)
- Bayreuther Festspielorchester, Bayreuther Festspielchor
- Pablo Heras-Casado
- Recorded: 2023-07-25
- Recording Venue: Festspielhaus, Bayreuth
Awards and reviews
October 2024
Andreas Schager is a magnificent Parsifal, tireless throughout with an almost lyric style that embraces every turn of the text. Elīna Garanča’s Kundry is at her most resplendent in Act 2 with a heartfelt ‘Ich sah das Kind’...Yet Pablo Heras-Casado’s tempos are often unusual.
October 2024
The most distinctive element…is conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. Though Wagner gave Parsifal the fancy moniker Bühnenweihfestspiel, Heras-Casado treats it like what it is – an opera with sharp dramatic contours and distant echoes of Meyerbeer and Verdi – full of respect but not reverence.