Well, this is just marvellous!I had (quite coincidentally) been listening on YouTube to the 1987 ENO Proms performance of Act Three, in English and conducted by Sir Reginald Goodall, and wishing that the whole production was available. Imagine my delight when -barely a fortnight later...this turned up!Andy finds that 'Lionel Friend appears to draw on the Goodall school of Wagner conducting'. That's because Mr. Friend at that time was one of ENO's formidable and highly-respected House Conductors, who could be called upon to conduct anything and everything...and did a very fine job of it too! Friend actually assisted Goodall on the musical preparation for this 1986 production, and I assume that Goodall was unwell for this broadcast; Friend takes over with confident aplomb and with qualities for which no apology has to be made! In fact, he went on to a splendid international career. Check out this biography: https://lionelfriend.com/biography.htmAs for the cast, there is little but joy here: Gwynne Howell's peerless, worldly-wise Gurnemanz (what a sonorous bass he had!), Neil Howlett's agonised Amfortas (Howlett was ENO's leading Verdi baritone at that time; also a great Scarpia, Golaud, Jochanaan and Dutchman), Rodney Macann's really nasty -but beautifully sung-Klingsor (I remember his dramatic King Priam for Kent Opera), Anne Evans's rare Kundry - a real tour-de-force!), the more-than-dependable Dennis Wicks as Titurel, and a host of familiar ENO names amongst the supporting cast. Only Warren Ellsworth's Parsifal is -for me- less than completely satisfying. He has the right voice, he has wonderful dramatic involvement, he has the charisma for a Wagnerian hero...so what is it? Well, as I found with Welsh National Opera's Walkure (conducted by Goodall and also starring Anne Evans's first Brunnhilde), Mr. Ellsworth -who was tragically to die at only 42- sometimes indulges in a (slight) scoop; more a sort-of little forcing of the note (for dramatic emphasis?) It's not terribly bothersome, and not enough to remotely considering docking a star(!) but -for me- it does slightly mar the whole experience.As could be expected from English National Opera "in those days", diction is mainly above average and -especially in a static opera like Parsifal- it really helps when you can understand what Gurnemanz is burbling on about in those 15-minute monologues!I have thought long and hard before sharing my final thoughts with other enthusiasts...but I will take the plunge. For me, and despite my purely-personal reservations with Ellsworth, this is simply one of the most wonderful performances of Parsifal one could ever wish to experience. Don't hesitate...please!

This is a most tantalizing recording. It is the final performance of a run of maybe 6, all of which were conducted by Reginald Goodall - except this final, broadcast evening. I was there for three or four of the evenings. As we know from the earlier Covent Garden Vickers 'Parsifal' conducted by Goodall (available on OperaDepot), Goodall was at the unique Knappertsbusch level of inspiration in this work. Whether Lionel Friend conducted the broadcast performance for some contractual reason, I cannot say, but he seemed to most of us at the time to have had the courtesy not to intrude too much upon the spirit of the master whose place he took. In the theatre we did notice a difference, mainly of 'edge', since Goodall's command of Furtwänglerian calculated ambiguity was not something to be imitated; the players kinda knew what to expect. But equally, they knew what to deliver, in a Goodall manner, under the Friend baton.As for the singers, Elmsworth does a decent job, but cannot match the podium of Vickers, Windgassen and so on. He does have what I'd call a nice flexibility, all the same, at its best reminding us of the weirdly insightful idea that Wagner had - that his line should be sung as if in Italian... The star of the show, however, well worth the price of the set alone, is the Gurnemanz of Gwynne Howell, along with the superb Klingsor from Rodney Macann. These are tremendous performances; and, since Gurnemanz has such potent and important words to utter, having the magnificence of Howell and the immediacy of English, is a grand treat.In the ghastly world of ranking performances, as with wines, in scores xx/100, this performance will not outscore sundry pinnacles from Knappertsbusch (many), Cluytens (a few), Kempe (a couple), Goodall (one) - nor even Gui (one, truncated and in Italian, but with Christoff and Callas) - and so on, but it is worthy, engaging and moving; and, for those daunted by German, and/or by a text that has so many nuances, references and messages, on levels that range from the moral to the erotic, the direct fix upon this text in English can only help their assessment of what the hell is going on in this radical critique of Christianity and its centrality to our civilisation...