Posted by Daryl on March 30, 2007, 17:39:58, in reply to "Parsifal on DVD" Three performances I'd LOVE to see on DVD soon is the 1981 Bayreuth performance with Jerusalem, Randova, Weikl, Sotin, Salminen, with Horst Stein et al. All concerned are in MUCH better voice than in the Met performance. There's also the 1994 Kupfer Bayreuth production under Barenboim with Poul Elming, Meier, Falk Struckmann and John Tomlinson that has been on VHS for years, but not yet on DVD. There's also a bootleg of a performance from Geneva in 1982 with Vickers, Minton, Rydl, Krause and Mazura that looks like it was taped off a TV broadcast...perhaps that too could be cleaned up. It looks like a really interesting performance to be sure. You also have two films to consider: the Jordan/Syberberg (strange interpretation, but remarkably performed!) and the Domingo "documentary" with the Kirov under Gergiev (also Urmana, Salminen, Putilin). I see also that just last November they released a new production from La Fenice with Robert Decker, Matthias Hoelle, Wolfgang Schoene, Doris Soffel, et al. Haven't seen it, so I can't comment. Good luck! Daryl
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Your options are better now than ever before, but they are still limited. We can only hope that some productions which appeared on VHS and Laser Disc in the past will be available on DVD soon, but not soon enough. Right now you have the Met version on DG from the late 90's (with Kurt Moll, Siegfried Jerusalem, Waltraud Meier, Bernd Weikl, et al.) and the Nagano on OpusArte from 2002 with Salminen, Hampson, Ventris, Meier, et al. The Nagano is beautifully sung and performed, but the production is a God-awful eyesore. A waste of time and energy. The Met production is as traditional as you can expect and it is suffering from age, but it has Kurt Moll, who puts in a tremendous performance. Matti Salminen is wonderful in the Nagao set but doesn't quite match Moll. I much prefer Hampson over Weikl (who incidentally seems to be really suffering not from a spear wound, but from vocal problems in the most difficult passages). Ventris is in fresh voice and handily beats out Jerusalem. But this is no competition. There are things to gripe about with each set, but in the end, you'd be happy with either. Ideally, you could have both and not feel like you're replicated anything.
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