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Parsifal
Years ago when I first heard this performance of Parsifal, it was quite difficult for me to get over the oddity of it being sung in Italian. Upon closer reexamination I have found that if you can get past that there is actually a superb performance here independent of the fact that it also features the great Maria Callas as Kundry. If only more of Callas' performances of Wagner still existed as this is a tantalizing glimpse into what her Walküre Brünnhilde and Isolde must have been like. The intensity and commitment that Callas brought to roles like Tosca and Norma make Kundry a natural fit. She also achieves some mesmerizing moments particularly in her act II monolog, "Grausamer" in which she describes after having laughed at Christ on the cross, being moved by pity. It is remarkable that she was only 27 when this performance was made. Africo Baldelli is a sturdy, if somewhat unremarkable Parsifal, although he brings a cantabile quality to his singing which serves him quite well in the third act. Boris Christoff is a sonorous Gurnemanz and Rolando Panerai brings a sweet bel canto quality to Amfortas even during his anguished outbursts. All in all this group of Italians (and Italian specialists) manages to bring the best of their tradition to Wagner without perverting his singular vision for one of the most mystical operas ever written.
Track List
Act I
Tracks 1 - 15
Act II
Tracks 16 - 27
Act III
Tracks 28 - 39
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4.3
Based on 6 reviews
✓ Top Reviewer
United States
Great Performance, Excellent Sound!
This is the only document we have of Callas in a complete Wagner role, one she gave up early on (there was talk of her performing it at La Scala in the mid 50's, but nothing ever came of it). She is terrific, really conjuring up Kundry's seductive allure and wild unpredictability. She performs all of Kundry's screams in the second act (including the one at the end that most Kundrys leave out), but doesn't bother to groan or scream when she wakes up in Act Three. What a pity a complete Isolde has never surfaced, a role she did indeed broadcast.Christoff sings Gurnemanz's monologues very well (or what's left of them with all the performance cuts). The young Panerai is a moving Amfortas and Baldelli is a more lyrical Parsifal than we normally hear. Among the Flowermaidens are two well-known Lucias, Lina Pagliughi and Liliana Rossi. Gui leads a strong performance preserved in good sound. Parsifal goes well in Italian too.Gui's cuts are annoying, but to be expected given the era in which this performance was given. All Callas fans should hear this and Wagner fans too!
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United Kingdom
parsifal - callas
I'd love to give you 5 stars - but I've never received the CD in the post!!I've probably had the download - but I don't do downloads. Will I get the CD or don't you send them by post any more?? Also I have written before but got no reply.You have a wonderful catalogue - right up my street but I can't buy any more unless I know I will get the CDs
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Mexico
Alberto Ramos Elorduy W
Possibly the recording does not do justice to this version of Parsifal.The voices of all singers are extremely altered, although you can see how great they are. In my opinion, Maria Callas makes an excellent interpretation of Kundry.I consider driving as modest.The Italian interpretation makes it an interesting version of Parsifal.
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Canada
Grateful for a new experience
I remember my reaction the first time I saw Figaro in German: it was as if all the vowels and the consonants had been inverted. It seemed an almost comical perversion, not only of the text but of the music itself. However, I did not entirely avoid seeing other operas when they were in German. Fortunately in the late 1960s the practice was on the wan in Hamburg. Never having lived in Italy, I have not had occasion to see an Italian version of a German opera; nor was I interested. This recording is therefore a "first" for me, and I am very grateful to Operadepot for offering it as a free download, because it surely would not have occurred to me to buy it! But now I am glad for the experience. For aficionados (as many surely are who come to this site), this performance is well worth hearing. For Callas, of course; but Panerai, Christoff and in particular Gui's conducting are also of interest.If you know Italian or only German, I recommend the Italian/German libretto available at http://www.dicoseunpo.it/W_files/Parsifal.pdf
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Robert Calder
It is worth noting, though I don’t have the specific reference, that with reference to Wagner’s obsession with Bellini and bel canto (the line, the ‘Melos’) one delightful pedantic old gent long ago regretted that this performance is in Italian because in his view it was the only one properly conducted — Vittorio Gui was one of the very great and among those great the greatest in the Bellini repertoire.So you may even be under-selling this recording,Panerai is very good, He had a longer voice than many other Italian baritones and was at one time engaged to record the lyric bass title role of Oberto in a radio recording of Verdi’s first opera. Some decades later he was on the live location recording of LA TRAVIATA aged 76, and perfectly able. His performances of lighter roles well up in the baritone voice mark him out as a considerable artist, showing up there a lightness of timbre quite distinct from what he produced in roles with a lower tessitura, as in Oberto, and of course here…
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Daniel Zara
Not to dispute with the Operadepot Establishment, but Italian renderings of Wagner are not merely something to be hopefully gotten “past” or “over”. They provide, rather, encouraging openings to a better appreciation of W’s pseudo-quasi religious outings, Parsifal in particular. Escaping the gyves and gutturals of “The Master”‘s thunkily contrived Ur-Deutsch into the glides and glisses of Manrico, Alvaro, Edgardo, this purported Stage Consecrating Goat Coupling before which we are all expected to kneel in “stained glass attitudes” and never sniff, cough, or–gottenhimmel!!–applaud, turns out to be, when translated as Piave or Giacosa might have done, a remarkably lyrical bunch of business. The insufferable characters are no nearer to folks you’d want to have that beer with, but a great deal of the off-putting stodge has been let out of them. And, btw, the sound is remarkable for 1950: that great, voices-up-front, clarity of the old RAI.
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