Parsifal: Knappertsbusch / Bayreuth Festival (1964)

Wagner: Parsifal

Jon Vickers (Parsifal)
Hans Hotter (Gurnemanz)
Thomas Stewart (Amfortas)
Gustav Neidlinger (Klingsor)
Barbro Ericson (Kundry)
Heinz Hagenau (Titurel)
Anja Silja, Dorothea Siebert, Liselotte Rebmann, Rita Bartos, Else-Margrete Gardelli, Sylvia Lindenstrand (flower maidens)
Ruth Hesse (voice from above)

Choir and Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival
Hans Knappertsbusch, conductor

Live Recording: 13/08/1964

Retrospectively Hans Knappertsbusch's performances at the 1964 Bayreuth Festival came to be seen as the end of a performing tradition that dated back to the early years of the 20th century but which had also left a decisive mark on the style of New Bayreuth since its reopening in 1951.

Knappertsbusch brought a tension to the Bayreuth acoustic, with its well-blended, compact sound, while never allowing his broad tempos to sacrifice any details in Wagner's orchestral writing.

During his final season, Knappertsbusch had at his disposal a team of singers fully capable of helping him to shape this synthesis of tonal fullness and the art of subtly nuanced interpretation. Prominent among the soloists in this live recording is Jon Vickers in the title role. He first sang the part in Bayreuth in 1964, bringing to it a vocal power that took Festival audiences by complete surprise. As in virtually all the Canadian tenor's performances, the listener is moved by the singer's ability to rein in his voice and produce the subtlest nuances, most notably in the Good Friday scene. His equal in this regard was the Gurnemanz of Hans Hotter, whose qualities as a lieder singer allowed him to create islands of extreme intimacy in the character's lengthy narrations. One of his great successors as Wotan in the Ring was Thomas Stewart, who is heard here as Amfortas, his somewhat lighter - but by no means lightweight - timbre and art of characterisation producing an outstanding psychological study of the ailing Grail king. His antagonist Klingsor is played by the indestructible Gustav Neidlinger, Bayreuth's legendary Alberich, whose pitch-black bass brought a real sense of menace to the part.