Wagner seven, Verdi nil: that’s the score of complete operas performed at the Proms during this, the bicentenary of both composers. It doesn’t seem a fair reflection of their respective places in musical history but maybe Verdi will get better treatment in the tercentenary. But for now, this Parsifal brought the Proms’ Wagner series to a rousing climax.
London doesn’t often hear the Manchester-based Hallé but its music director Mark Elder has shaped it into a formidable Wagnerian outfit. Occasional moments of roughness mattered little set against the slow burn and widescreen perspectives engendered by Elder’s measured approach to tempo. String textures were finely grained, the brass generated a blend of gaudy pageantry and evil menace, and the three choirs (some singing from the hall’s upper reaches) sang as if their lives depended on it.
For the soloists, Justin Way provided a bare-bones staging that did the job without demanding much in the way of acting. Despite the opera’s title, Parsifal isn’t really the main character. Perhaps that’s no bad thing, since Lars Cleveman was convincing enough as Parsifal the gullible dolt in the opening acts, but lacked the heft to be the universal redeemer that Wagner demands in Act Three. No such problem with the Gurnemanz of John Tomlinson, whose voice showed the wear and tear of decades of Wagnerising, but nevertheless threatened to lift the Albert Hall roof. More important, his word-by-word engagement with text remains electrifying. The biggest vocal charge, though, came from Katarina Dalayman, who made Kundry the only flesh-and-blood human in the whole opera, a devastating blend of torment and tenderness.
Catch up on iPlayer. Proms run until Sept 7 (0845 401 5040, bbc.co.uk/proms)
