Proms 2013: Parsifal, review

As the last of the seven Wagner operas that have dominated Proms programming in the composer’s bicentenary year – turning the Albert Hall into London’s Bayreuth this summer – Parsifal provided a fitting climax to the whole extraordinary experience. In many ways the most “total” of all Wagner’s “total art works”, his spiritual swansong, with its slow-moving, ritualistic drama, is also the best-suited of all his operas to the style of concert staging offered here.

In the event, this overwhelming performance by the Hallé under Mark Elder actually benefited from more detailed stage direction than the Ring cycle had been given. In charge of both projects, the director Justin Way here not only found economically expressive gestures but engaged with the whole building, conjuring up from the circular Albert Hall, with its columns and dome, a sort of grail temple. Not many opera houses can deliver the ranked choruses required by Wagner, and here the boys’ and youth choirs (perhaps a little too English in tone for this music) were placed up in the gallery alongside some brass to thrilling effect, while the Royal Opera Chorus anchored things down on the stage.

Marshalling everyone with calm assurance – and allowing the music to flow with its own, slow pulse – Elder showed again why his Wagner operas at home with the Hallé in Manchester have been so successful. He and the orchestra wove together a prelude that soon found its spiritual “halo” and, even more crucially, all the essential pain and anguish. The second-act magic garden was sensuously evoked, and unlike some opera orchestras the Hallé showed no sign of tiring at the end of the long evening.

As Kundry, the wild woman who by redeeming Parsifal is herself redeemed, Katarina Dalayman gave an outstanding account of a role perfectly suited to her voice. The Swede’s dusky low notes suggest all the character’s mysteriousness, and higher up she moves effortlessly between voluptuousness and vulnerability. It was a performance to equal her compatriot Nina Stemme’s rapturously received Brünnhilde in the Proms Ring.

Another Swede, the tenor Lars Cleveman, was convincing in the title role even without the glowing, open tone ideally required for this “holy fool”. His voice might have sounded bigger were he not singing opposite the larger-than-life John Tomlinson, compellingly authoritative as Gurnemanz. Detlef Roth’s anguished Amfortas was thoughtfully sung and Tom Fox’s snakelike Klingsor brought a well-focused snarl to the performance.