Parsifal in the Finnish National Opera, the 19th of May, 2018

I saw Harry Kupfer’s production of Parsifal already when it had its first night in 2005 in the Finnish National Opera, but I have to admit that my memories of that performance were rather vague already. That is why I decided to go and see it again, now that it has returned to the National Opera. The set design (Hans Schavernoch) and lighting design (Andrew Voller) have been criticized during this renewal as old-fashioned, but it is good to remember that nothing is eternal and in ten years something hot can become the new normal. The sets and lights did not create any vow-effect anymore, but they weren’t that bad either.

The story of Parsifal is just a fragment of a longer story line, but briefly, it is a story of the innocent Parsifal, who by resisting temptation manages to free the injured Amfortas from his pains and save the knights of Grail from destruction.

To be honest I wasn’t enthusiastic about the direction of this Parsifal. There was far too much of laying around and crawling in the opera. I assume they were supposed to express strong emotions, but at least for me they did not work. Fortunately Wagner’s music is so great that by concentrating on the music, you can live through a less good direction.

And it was easy to concentrate on the music, since the conductor PInchas Steinberg got the orchestra of the Finnish National Opera to play superbly. In addition to which the soloists were good, so it was no hardship to listen to five hours of Wagner. My personal favourite was Tommi Hakala in the role of Amfortas; you could really hear the pain and self-blame in his voice. Tuija Knihtilä in the role of Kundry also did well even though in this direction Kundry was a bit too cliché a role. Nikolai Schukoff in the role of Parsifal was not bad either, though he did not reach the level of Klaus Florian Vogt in last summer’s Turku performance.  Jyrki Korhonen sang the role of Gurnemanz. His voice was great, but I was a bit disappointed on his acting. At his best Korhonen is so excellent, that I was expecting more of him this time, too, but, of course, this was his first Gurnemanz.