Parsifal by Elemental Opera

Despite going to several operas a year for many years I had seen little Wagner and had never seen Parsifal before so there was never any question of going to see a local production be Elemental Opera.

I learned about it via the Fulham Opera in one of those "from our friends" things on one of their emailings which just goes to show that cross-promotions do work.

The local venue was St Michael and All Angels church in Turnham Green, literally across the road from the Tabard theatre and pub. A chance to get inside the church, a landmark in the famous Bedford Park, was another reason for wanting to go.

The only drawback, and it was an obvious one, was that Parsifal lasts for four hours and with two intervals that made the production just over five hours long. There was a risk that it could be something of a battle of endurance but that I was a risk that I was prepared to take. I also took a cushion in case the pews were not up to the job.

I skimmed the synopsis of Parsifal beforehand and took in just enough to know that the main theme has something to do with the Holy Spear/Grail and there was not much of a story. That was fine with me as I was content just to listen to the music and the singing without understanding anything of it very much.

The construction of Parsifal was much like Tristan und Isolde, and probably other Wagner operas, that I don't know in that the music almost seemed to be one piece and while the mood and the tempo changed there were few, if any, well defined arias. In structure it was something like a classic Yes track that filled one side of an LP with one song in several sections, some of them with words. Only Wager was not constrained by the physical size of vinyl albums and his pieces were much longer.

This was music to immerse yourself in and to experience, not to hum to yourself afterwards. The lasting memory is not of tunes but of grand moods created by those tunes. It was a very different experience from, say, your average Mozart opera, and I enjoyed that experience for different reasons.

The singing was well up to the task and my favourite character was Amfortas, ruler of the Grail kingdom. Hi voice was wonderful and he acted every inch the aged king.

What could have been a test of endurance proved to be a good evening of music and singing. It certainly encouraged me to try and see some more Wagner sometime and, hopefully, Parsifal again in a proper opera house.

The Flying Dutchman at ENO

My attempt to get in to the habit of going to ENO in the same way that I go to Glyndebourne continued with The Flying Dutchman.

I made something of a day of by going to see some exhibitions at RIBA in the afternoon, meeting some friends in The Chandos just off Trafalgar Square before moving on to eat at Cotes (booked ahead because you need to).

I seem to have settled in to the Upper Circle, in fact I am not sure that I have ever sat anywhere else.

The view from here is excellent (I really do not understand why people choose to sit in the stalls) and if you sit near the front the price is high enough to keep the worst of the talkers, eaters and drinkers away.

But not necessarily women wearing bangles.

Checking the times on arrival revealed that there would be no interval which I prefer and which seems to be a growing trend. If the cast and set do not need a break then adding an artificial one to get money from drinks and ice creams is a little cynical.

I am not a great Wagner fan and I had only seen two of his operas previously, both at Glyndebourne, so had no great expectations or preconceptions.

The opera opens with a young girl in her bed playing with a model boat while images of waves play on the thin screen at the front of the stage.

The waves grew in size and menace as the music grew in intensity until both fell away.

The audience clapped. And while they clapped the CGI I purposely put my head in my hands and slowly shook it. Is it time that opera goers were given behaviour guides?

The bed moves away and the bedroom becomes a ship, a ship in a storm. The captain sees the storm as little more than an inconvenience that blows them a little off their route when they were so close to home.

As the storm eases another ship approaches and we are introduced to The Flying Dutchman and we hear how he has been dammed to roam the seas with no hope of death.

In his many travels over many years he has accumulated a fortune and offers this to the captain for his daughter's hand in marriage. He agrees.

The scene then moves to onshore where we find the Captain's daughter, now a young woman, at work.

The mood changes from the dark malevolent sea to a playful workplace. I found this to be a little incongruous with the story and the music.

Soon the ship is sighted and the women in the factory flock to the harbour meet their returning men, the Captain introduces his daughter to the Dutchman who repeats his tale and the story draws towards its inevitable conclusion.

Though what this is somewhat blurred by the production that having moved reasonably nicely towards the ending then sprints to it along an unusual route that is hard to follow and leaves you rather flat.

Another review commented that the production sought to mimic elements of popular musical theatre to the detriment of the story, and I agree.


On the positive side, the music and singing were good.and sometimes better than that. The Dutchman was magnificent and was well supported for the most part. One voice I found to be a little weak but that was one fairly minor role early on.

In the end the music just about wins through and the overblown and confusing production can be forgiven.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Glyndebourne

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was the largest ever production at Glyndebourne and it showed. The stage was full for most of the long evening with singers, actors, children and even circus acts.

But that was at the end of the evening and I want to start at the beginning.

Glyndebourne expected demand for the few performances of Die Meistersinger to be high, even though the cheap seats in the upper circle were £150 each, so we were limited to just two tickets each. So without the usual car load to take I went by train instead.

The train to Lewes leaves from London Victoria and I caught it at Clapham Junction were there were around thirty people going the same way. The train was already busy and it was bit of a struggle to find a seat and somewhere to put the picnic stuff.

The pre-booked courtesy bus took us from Lewes station to Glyndebourne. We had to take the long route as the town centre was closed for a carnival of some sort and Glyndebourne was already busy by the time that the bus got there.

A quick desperate dash up the stairs grabbed the last available space on the picnic tables next to the opera house.

Heavy rain was forecast and so a picnic on the grass was out of the question and I did not fancy the walk to/from the marquee in the expected rain.

The expected rain stayed away before the opera started allowing me to take the traditional walk through the gardens that is very much part of the Glyndebourne experience.

As is the champagne that was opened to accompany a late and light lunch.

Around 3pm the bell summoned us into the house to hear the start of the marathon opera that would occupy us, with intervals, for over six hours.

The only other Wagner opera that I had seen all the way through was Tristan und Isolde which I saw two years ago so I came to Die Meistersinger with few preconceptions and few expectations either.

The story is simple but told in a lot of detail so while there are no surprises at all there is enough substance in the dialogue to keep you fully engaged. Four hours sound like a marathon but it felt much more like a middle-distance event.

I've seen Die Meistersinger describes as a comedy but I would not agree with that. It's basically a love story that has some comic elements. A RomCom if you like.

Musically (and I may get shot for this) it carries on in much the same vein throughout and while there are some dramatic moments there are no stand-out songs. At least not on the first hearing.

The singing is pretty constant too as there is a lot of story to tell and lots of people to help tell it.

And this is where the opera and Glyndebourne wins. The singing is exquisite throughout as is the character acting that is demanded of the singers on top of their day job of delivering the music.

The staging works well mostly by being simple and letting the story happen around it rather than being part of the story itself. The one exception is the slapstick section in Act 3 when Beckmesser (the baddie) sneaks in to Sachs' (the cobbler) workshop and he first falls over a bench and then ends up throwing lots of books on to the floor. I felt that this comedy was a little forced, inconsistent with the rest of the opera and was unnecessary too.

But I come back to the superb music and the singing which carried me effortlessly and enjoyably through the story and the evening. The journey home by bus, train and another bus felt like a magic carpet ride as I so buoyed up by the whole experience.

When Glyndebourne is as good as this it really is magical.

Tristan und Isolde at Glyndebourne

My fourth, and final, trip to Glyndebourne this year was to see Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

It's an opera that I did not know and it was the second visit this year with the same friends so we went for some (relatively) cheap seats and we found ourselves in the very back row (Row G Upper Circle).

We also found ourselves in the very middle of the row so being at the back was no problem. In some ways it was better than being in the stalls, where we had been on the previous visit, as it is easy to see the surtitles from higher up.

The weather looked less than promising so we grabbed one of the picnic tables in the opera house complex. This worked out well as it not only gets rid of the potential rain problem it also vastly reduces the travel time to the seats thereby giving more time for eating and drinking!


Tristan und Isolde is a fairly simple tragic love story told over four hours of gorgeous and dramatic singing.

Wagner tells the story at a consistent pace and in a consistent mood. There are no stand-out arias and no simple songs heavy with repetition.

The drama is mostly told by Tristan and Isolde who spend most of the time on stage and singing.

The staging was fairly simple, which I like as it leaves the focus on the actors. The same stage (shown here in its 2007 guise) was used very effectively in all three acts where it gave admirable impressions of a boat and two different rooms.

The clever bit was the lighting which was used, for example, to show the passing of the day. It also allowed actors to hide once they had done their bit thereby reducing the distracting noise of people walking on and off stage.

Tristan und Isolde was an undoubted success and was a fitting finale for the Glyndebourne season. I saw four very different operas this year (though they all featured magic and three had love potions!) and it is hard to compare them but, if pushed, I would say that L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti was the most complete production, with Tristan und Isolde a most creditable second.