A double dose of Wagner in Birmingham

Andris Nelsons must really, really like Parsifal. For the CBSO's just-announced 2014-15 season - Andris's last at the helm - he's programmed it twice.

The first outing is on 25 August 2014 (Bank Holiday Monday). Klaus Florian Vogt makes a rare UK appearance to sing extracts from Parsifal and Lohengrin, and there's Elgar's Second Symphony to follow.  Tickets are on sale now.

We don't get the full 306-minute Grail Magic until Sunday 17 May 2015, when Burkhard Fritz (or "Fritz Burkhard" as the CBSO site puts it) takes the title role. The remainder of an outstanding cast includes Georg Zeppenfeld, James Rutherford, and Mihoko Fujimura. Public booking opens on 27 May.

For those who wish to weep a little tear over Andris's departure for Boston, he's conducting two farewell concerts, on 17 and 18 June 2015. They feature a new work from his fellow-Latvian Eriks Ešenvalds together with Mahler's Third Symphony.

Comments

[Justin Chapman]

I hope the approximate timings come true - Act 1 in 97 minutes - what a joy! And I'm not being sarcastic - after Elder's dire 'Parsifal' at the Proms last year it would be fantastic to hear this opera not taken at a snail's pace for a change!

[SJT]

The much (meaninglessly) reviled Franz Welser-Etc. takes a similarly bracing view of Wagner. London seems to be stuck with the 2-hour-plus-for-Act I brigade since time immemorial (which even Solti didn't dare challenge).

[Justin Chapman]

In the theatre I've heard Goodall, Haitink, Elder, Wigglewsorth, Pappano and Nagano, and despite the flak he often receives, Nagano's was the most theatrically alert reading out of the lot of them...

[DESR]

The slower the better! Look at what Reggie did with it...

[Justin Chapman]

Reggie made it interminable, tedious and dull. I always thought he was a hugely overrated conductor, adulated by audiences and critics alike because a) he was the underdog 'what done good', b) he was British and c) he was old. His way with 'Parsifal' and 'The Ring' leave me cold, but others find his approach unimpeachable. Having said that I wouldn't want to be without his Decca studio 'Tristan' recording, and there's no doubt that he was a superb coach - John Tomlinson, Anne Evans, Alberto Remedios and Gwynne Howell are testament to that, but for me I prefer my 'Parsifal' not to be mired in the mud.

[Joao]

The best live Parsifal conductiing I had was Gatti in Bayreuth, three years in a row. It was also the slowest. And I've heard Haitink, Barenboim, Haenchen, Levine, Rattle, Pappano and Stein, among others (not in that order).

[SJT]

Gatti at the Met took 110' over Act I. Gergiev here - both at the RAH and the Barbican - took 105'. The 120'+ marathons seem confined to WC2, worse luck.

Personally, I found Goodall's Wagner riveting heard live: but unlistenable to heard on disc subsequently (like Bernstein's late Mahler, I might add).

Rattle gave he best account of the score I've ever caught live, not alas at the ROH in Gruber's stuffed-shark and 18th-hole-at-Atlanta staging, but in concert, at the RAH, with the Rotterdam PO playing it perfectly (in the one acoustic here in London in which the work positively blossoms).

[DESR]

You two (SJT and Justin Chapman) should therefore get hold of his live recordings from broadcasts, not just of the Ring, but of Parsifal (at the ROH in 1971), Tristan & Isolde (ENO 1981 and WNO 1979) and a late Walkure from Cardiff in 1984 which is fabulous. Avoid anything he did in a studio, at least by comparison...

[Justin Chapman]

I remember seeing his Walkure in Liverpool in 1984 - how do I get hold of a copy?

[DESR]

One of the opera sharing websites for broadcasts of this kind is your best bet