Music
Uwe Eric Laufenberg: “Parsifal is the utopia of a dying people”
After the very short-term cancellation of the conductors Andris Nelsons things weren’t perfect play violently at the Bayreuth festival. Shortly before the Premiere, the Director revealed to the mountain of the DW to run a lot about the scandals and the Grail revelation.
Deutsche Welle: As Andris Nelsons plenty of out of tune Bayreuth, left, could you read that for the production of a disaster. How do you feel now?
Uwe Eric Laufenberg: Since Hartmut Haenchen has taken over the baton, the production is musically in good hands. He has a very different view from that of Nelson’s. For the singer, it was quite difficult to change – but also for the orchestra. Haenchen comes from the original score. He has a full set of notes and the orchestra musicians on the consoles. You said: “Oh, dear, Oh, dear, this is a total conversion!” In Bayreuth there are traditions that are now written in the note sheets are used. And for this orchestra, the changeover means a lot, because you can play the part by heart. Now you will be forced to look in the notes. This makes it a little uncomfortable. The production benefits from Hartmut Haenchens strength and stringency.
And in 26 days!
Yes.
Most of the time it goes in the run-up to the Bayreuth festival. One hears or reads of a conflict, one gets the impression that the nerves were here bright and the pressure is enormous. This is so?
Hartmut Haenchen stepped in at short notice as a conductor and brought the singer and orchestra to sweat
Before I started working here, I asked the Board: “these scandals always extra, Bayreuth remains in the conversation?” “No, no, no, we are not doing that,” came the answer. So here it’s always the other, and you yourself did nothing at all. I can see it with a certain sense of Humor. But it is a pity if a conductor flies from the railway, the great and the good, actually would have been able to make. It is certainly very painful, if it happens to the singers – as in the previous year (note d. Red.: In 2015, the soprano Anja Kampe, left, during the rehearsals, the Ensemble). I’m glad that we were able to keep our cast together, and it is with great pleasure to each other have worked. We are so in the Moment, not a stricken people here.
You tell us, please from the workshop. You give an example of the interaction between the Director, conductor, soloists, and the technical Team.
Of course, I could tell a lot of minor scandals, the plates are always gone high. I’ve done it but so far – we need to knock on wood that we bring, the now in peace and great Togetherness to the stage. The productions run in any case in Bayreuth differently. All who come here are prepared with a hundred percent and know how to do it. This is, of course, for a Director or a conductor who wants to do something New, also quite a burden.
The last Bayreuth ‘Parsifal’production of Director Stephan Herheim praised:
What went on the alarm clock, is that there are acoustic experts, say: “Wagner has meant it, and the choir, the singers have to here and there, otherwise you will not hear.” I think this is nonsense, because you can hear the voices here are always clearer than any other Theater in the world. And if people say: “it must be so-and-so made, so that the acoustic works”, then I don’t believe it.
Where to settle your Interpretation of ‘Parsifal’? You do not need to react somehow on interpretations of other Directors, especially in Bayreuth,?
To me the crux of the matter, in the center of the piece to penetrate interested.
Where is the core?
Basically, the piece explores the Christian Religion. There is the charitable, fraternal, on the one hand: empathy, compassion, the Help Want to what makes this Grail company in “Parsifal”. Then there is also the other side: this crucified, tortured blood-God and the blood rituals – so what that have to do with martial elements. Wagner wanted to show in this work, in my opinion, the Good and the mystery. I don’t think he wanted to criticize the Religion superficially, but experience. And this is interesting in the times in which we live – where the religions make themselves out to be part just to be very radical. Or where there is a Pope Francis, the attempts of the state form of Religion to get away and in the all-Merciful, the Fellow shows happen. So the question is have been at all times up to date: What the religions do, as they can be ideologically abused? And what you stand for, actually?
Shortly before the Premiere mountain run a relaxed impression
In the five-hour-long work “Parsifal”, there is actually little action or action. The characters are rather allegorical figures. And then this Happy ending: All of them are redeemed. Is not to stage the piece, but very difficult?
If you take the only on the Text along, “Parsifal” is always difficult. You need the music. They told in Details so much that you have to track them down. So it goes also with the Happy ending. Wagner knew this would be his last work. And at the end of the last Grail revelation: The violins are going up, but the keys move in a higher and clearer regions, and the Whole gone with the wind like a Nothing. It is like a last Exhale, a letting go. This is the utopia of a dying people, so if you want. A very beautiful, healing, peaceful utopia.