Here comes the compelet cast of this Concert performance:Parsifal– 10 aprile 1963 (in forma di concerto e in lingua originale, ripartito in tre serate).1. Parsifal: Jess Thomas 2. Kundry: Regina Resnik 3. Amfortas: Gustav Neidlinger 4. Gurnemanz: JosefGreindl 5. Klingsor: Frans Andersson 6. Titurel: Frederick Guthrie 7. Cavalieri del Gral: Frans Andersson,Aldo Bottion 8. Scudieri: Aldo Bottion, Angelo Mori, Hanula Rzoska, Maja Zingerle 9. Fanciulle-fiore: Ma-ria Luisa Carnio, Virginia De Notaristefano, Daniela Mazzuccato, Jolanda Michieli, Marisa Salimbeni, Ma-ja Zingerle – Dir.: André Cluytens; m° coro: Sante Zanon.

I am writing not only as audience, but as Regina Resnik's son. Thank you, Opera Depot, for issuing my mother's one and only Kundry. The only other copy, as far as I know, is the reel-to-reel my mother donated to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. In a previous review, your lauded her performance inspite of the high tessitura. Returning to this performance after perahps 50 years, I am struck by the magnificent colors she produced and the sductive rishness of her interpretation. And although Kundry is not a role she was made for as a mezzo-soprano, the high-lying outbursts at the end of the act are very exciting. And the sound is better than the original reel-to-reel. This is a really superlative performance with a great cast of the time. Jess Thomas, Josef Greindl and Gustav Neidlinger were great Wagenrian voices and male interpreters, and Andre Cluytens a leading Wagner conductor. A piece of history.So thank you again, Michael Philip Davis

This performance was previously available on tapes that were off-pitch and poor-sounding. (As it stands, there were a couple of tape glitches even Opera Depot couldn't fix.) We're lucky to have as much as we do, particularly for the rarity of Regina Resnik's Sundry. Some of her utterances sound rather stately but, as moderator says above, she really comes into her own -- although she eschews the scripted screams in the Klingsor scene (with Frans Andersson a fearsome, brooding sorcerer) and whatever strain she experiences in the closing pages of Act II is par for the course of virtually any mezzo-soprano tackling this demanding role. Josef Greindl is a surprisingly warm, down-to-earth Gurnemanz but Gustav Neidlinger was having an off-day, revealing little of Amfortas' anguish. Jess Thomas' performance is as affecting and well-sung as it would be in the 1962 Bayreuth recording, evincing the same charm in the questions-and-answers with Gurnemanz, and leveling Klingsor's tower with authority. André Cluytens does the best he can with the Teatro la Fenice orchestra but some rheumy horns were more than even he could fix. This is a valuable document, even if we only have roughly half the opera.

Since Regina Resnik was never one to shirk a scream when the composer asked for it, I'm going to assume that these excerpts are taken from a concert performance because she does none of Kundry's screams here. Of course anything Resnik sang was fascinating and she certainly is here. As Andy writes in his comments above, she is as sometimes stretched by the high passages at the end of Act Two, but she makes it all the way through effectively enough. The other singers know their roles well and Cluytens is first-rate.