Wagner Society in NSW Inc
Bayreuth Parsifal 2004 (performance of Wednesday 18 August 2004
The first opera Christoph Schlingensief ever directed was Parsifal at this year's Bayreuth Festival. In an attempt to counter criticisms of ossification the festival director, Wolfgang Wagner, offered Schlingensief artistic freedom 'as big as his mouth'. It was a bold appointment, but fitting for a festival which has always been on the threshold between art and politics.
Why appoint Schlingensief?
Christoph Schlingensief was born in 1960 in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area of Germany . His father was a pharmacist. As a child he made Super 8 films and won prizes as a 12 year old. After twice failing to get into the Munich Film and Television School he studied Art History and Philosophy for five semesters, then quitting to form a film production company. His first film 'Tungunska – Die Kisten sind da' (Tungunska- the crates are there) attracted favourable reviews in 1983 and he went on in the period 1989-1992 to make the German trilogy '100 Years Adolf Hitler- the last hours in the Fuehrer bunker', 'The German chain saw massacre' and 'Terror 2000' a drastic reflection on a broad sweep of German history which attracted its share of criticism for its horror film style. In 1993 , he made further films exploiting Christian religious symbols in arguing conflicts between political power and hopes of redemption.
In 'The 120 days of Bottrop' (1997) Schlingensief did a remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini's notoriously shocking 'Salo–the 120 days of Sodom', banned in many countries, including Australia, although shown briefly here about 10 years ago . It is deliberately designed to create a painful and involving experience for the spectator. Particularly relevant to the present review, in 1997 Schlingensief also created his first effort at performance art or installation with 'documenta X ' in Kassel . In this activity passers-by could observe through a window Schlingensief and his team in a room surrounded by sandbags, eating, sleeping, acting and destroying valuable artworks. He was investigated by the police for displaying slogans like 'Death to Helmut Kohl'. This installation was part of a theme 'My felt, my fat, my hare–48 hours surviving for Germany'. The hare will become very important in his Parsifal .
Schlingensief first became associated with Wagner in the radical theatre company, the Berlin Volksbühne. He devised the comedy 'The Berlin Republic or the Ring in Africa' wherein Gerhard Schroeder wants to put on the Ring in the Namibian (former German South West African) desert (like Herzog's Fitzcarraldo) and Doris, his wife, kills the Minister for Culture to the strains of Siegfried's funeral march.
Following this was the 'Deutschlandsuche 99', a theatrical activity in which 99 common objects were distributed among 10 German states, New York and Namibia to the accompaniment of loud Wagner music. The objects included used tampons, sanitary napkins, dead mice, tickets to the Reichstag, stuffed animals, coffee and applause meters. In New York , Schlingensief dressed as an orthodox Jew and the objects were thrown into the Hudson River . In Namibia , the activity was carried out via 12 jeeps with speakers mounted so that the frequency of the music could be altered. A highlight was the playing of Wagner to the seals at Cape Cross . The objects were meant to represent Germany at the end of the millennium.
In June 2000, he put 12 asylum seekers in Vienna in containers and allowed their monitoring via cameras and the internet. They were played tapes of Joerg Haider daily and a large sign 'Ausländer raus' was erected over the container city. One asylum seeker was released for each spectator raising his voice in protest. This direct action caused a great scandal in the Austrian media .
In 2001, he directed his first work of classical theatre, Hamlet, in the Zurich Schauspielhaus, integrating neo Nazis into German history. In the same year he directed Rosebud-the Original ( from Citizen Kane) at the Berlin Volksbühne . Under the motto 'Porn to be Wagner' all Walküren in the world were to be destroyed. This is the origin of his later and significant Church of Fear and Atta Atta installations.
With Freakstars 3000 in 2002, he created the first ever TV magazine program for handicapped people, confronting people with what is 'normal' and what is 'handicapped' . The show had a backing tape 'Nut looking for screwing'.
In January 2003, the first of his Atta Atta evenings (Art is destroyed) was held at the Volksbühne. Here he linked Art and Terror (Mohammed Atta was the lead September 11 pilot). Part of Tannhäuser was played. The set was a commune encompassing a US airforce base, an Afghan refugee camp and a slum where the unemployed lived.. Religious symbols were used. He related his own works to Wagner, real politics and the failure of Art to deal with Terror. He dealt with the failure of religion and art in the face of terrorism and introduced the redemption concept.
In March 2003, the Church of Fear concept was introduced. There is now no religion or art that can overcome the world of terror. Man must learn to live with the fear of war and terror. In June 2003 he was asked to direct Parsifal at Bayreuth . He immediately flew to Bhaktapur in Nepal to search for Buddhist elements for use in Parsifal . He then staged an action at the Venice bienniale where seven monks sat on concrete tree stumps for seven days around a small wooden church. In September he staged a one man pilgrimage to create the first pillars of the Church of Fear in Frankfurt , ending in Communion at the Bockenheimer Depot.
The second Atta evening was held in the Vienna Burgtheater in December 2003. 'Atta in Bambiland', which satirised the US TV imagery of the Iraq war in the form of an oratorio. Explicitly using the image of Parsifal witnessing anxiety, terror, war and chaos, the Bayreuth Parsifal would be a further part of the Church of Fear .
The third Atta evening 'Attabambi Pornoland' ( the journey of the pig) was dedicated to 'the pig that grunts in all of us'. Introduced in Wagnerian style as an 'aesthetic love and death song', the performance dealt with redemption, blood, sex, death,and the pornography of violence ie. parliamentary sittings, September 11 and the Iraq war. Tannhäuser and Parsifal were cited and part of the show was a soap opera in Wahnfried. In some performances Schingensief played the part of Wagner. Parsifal was shown as connected to Amfortas's wound via a heart- lung machine, that is, supplying pure blood. This show is directly related to the Parsifal concept of redemption through pity, to the late Wagner writings on racial purity, and to the final Schopenhaurean denial of the will. It is antecedent of the Schlingensief Bayreuth Parsifal , which can be seen as the fourth Atta evening. Schlingensief has said -no less - that he is the redeemer of Wagner, the pure fool, and that Bayreuth is the Grail. In directly bringing Wagner's life and thoughts into his work Schlingensief is echoing Syberberg in his 1982 Parsifal film.
In an interview at a Bayreuth Parsifal Workshop held in June 2004 at the Festspielhaus, Schingensief made three further observations of relevance. Firstly, the spectator is an integral part of any of his performances and no two performances are the same, including performances of his Bayreuth Parsifal . Secondly, he has said in interviews that he regarded the invitation to Bayreuth (from Katharina Wagner, Wolfgang's daughter by his second wife and his preferred successor) as a great honour and that he would take the production seriously: the question not being how he would change Bayreuth , but how Bayreuth would change him. Thirdly, he admitted to using film clips from his previous Atta productions in the Bayreuth Parsifal and to constantly changing the order of use in rehearsals.
Wagner's road to Parsifal
The main message of Parsifal is the rejection, in favour of fellow feeling with man and nature, of our tendency to think in terms of power and self-assertiveness. Wagner saw Parsifal as the cosmic culmination of the Ring , a recycling of nature- death and a better rebirth. Wagner arrived at i after a long genesis, dating from his earliest familiarity with the Wolfram epic in the early 1840s in Paris , via the unwritten music dramas Jesus of Nazareth (1849) and Die Sieger (1856). The former espoused the concept that Jesus had overturned the law of history that violence could only be defeated by further violence; the latter, the Schopenhaurean concept of redemption through denial of the will, specifically the will to sexual love.
In his late philosophical work 'Religion and Art' (1880), and subsequent addenda to it, Wagner reveals a lot of thinking that has informed his Parsifal and, I believe, Schligensief's as well. Some background knowledge of this work is necessary to be able to interpret the 2004 production.
In a famous formulation, Wagner claimed that when religion became artificial it was the role of art to preserve its essence by apprehending the mystical symbols which religion believed literally true and to present their inner meaning in idealised form. When pure Christianity had become the religion of the rich and more used as a tool of political and military power and property, it was the duty of art to redeem it through music, the only art which corresponds to true Christianity, being that concerned with compassion and recognition of the frailty of the world. In this respect he saw a pure religion as free of denominational ties and encompassing Buddhism as well as Christianity, and by implication Hinduism and Islam. While rejecting the Old Testament god as a god of revenge and violence rather than peace, he nevertheless was sympathetic to the early Jewish Cabbala, with its ideas of vegetarianism, sexual asceticism, metempsychosis (Kundry) and the unity of time and space. This sympathy negates the recent attempts to portray Parsifal as anti semitic (eg Gutman, Rose) .
Wagner saw both the need for removal of racial inequality by partaking of Holy Communion, drinking the blood of Jesus, and the need for regeneration following the degeneration of humanity as a result of world historical processes, mainly capitalisam (which he did not attribute to the Jews, as sometimes claimed). He also rejected Gobineau's notion of white superiority.
He also presciently foresaw the 19th Century equivalent of Schingensief's Church of Fear by drawing attention to the late 19th Century arms race. At that time the weapons of mass destruction were dynamite, torpedoes and battleships and there was a need for humans to learn to live with this fear.
Another important text is Wagner's letter to Ernst von Weber (1879) supporting his anti-vivsectionist movement and attacking the misuse of science and lack of fellow feeling for animals. He saw vivisection as bad as experimentation on poor humans and thought medical advances would be more likely achieved via preventive measures such as better hygiene and diet. He saw the rich as suffering from dietary excess and the physiologists as experimenting for their own glory rather than for mankind and animalkind.
Bayreuth and Parsifal
Parsifal is not an ordinary opera and not even an ordinary music drama. It was designated a Buehnenweihfestspiel – a festival play of consecration – and was written precisely with Bayreuth in mind. It was a summation of all Wagner's thinking and from 1882-1914, with one or two exceptions, could only be seen at Bayreuth , in a production barely changed from the original. This fidelity to the original production extended until Cosima's death in 1930. Productions elsewhere followed the Bayreuth model. Attending Parsifal was more like attending a religious ceremony and to this day it is customary not to clap at the end of Act 1. An interesting exhibition at Bayreuth 's Neuen Rathaus this year traces Parsifal productions in detail and I attended a meeting of the Bayreuth branch of the German Wagner Society on Parsifal history and the 2004 production.
The succession to Wolfgang Wagner is still undecided. He wants Katharina to have it but she has little experience as a director of opera. She has been named however as director of the new 2007 Meistersinger . Wolfgang has countered criticism of ossification at Bayreuth by inviting outside directors in recent years, becoming progressively more risk taking in radicalism. Who knows what Lars von Trier (director of such films as Zentropa, Breaking the Waves,The Idiots, Dogville) would have done with the Ring had he not withdrawn. By allowing Katharina to nominate Schligensief, I believe Wolfgang is trying to pre-empt claims by more theatrically experienced and conservative members of the Wagner family (such as Nike). He knows shock value is necessary to preserve the Bayreuth Institution.
Around Bayreuth this year there were 800 plastic dogs: an installation by Ottmar Hoerl to celebrate Wagner's love of animals. Throughout his autobiography, Cosima's diaries and the Brown Book, some 16 dogs can be identified. The relevance of this is that Hoerl's previous installation was 7000 green hares in the main market place to celebrate 500 years since Dürer's birthday in Nuremburg (1971). This was in recognition of Dürer's famous painting Junger Feldhase (Young hare in the field) of 1504, a symbol of pure nature. Why are hares important? Because they are the dominating image in the Schlingensief production which I now come to.
The production itself
Conductor :Pierre Boulez, Amfortas: Alexander Marco-Buhrmeister, Titurel: Kwangchul Youn, Gurnemanz: Robert Holl, Parsifal: Endrik Wottrich, Klingsor: John Wegner, Kundry: Michelle de Young.
The set is a series of solid scenes and real actors, constantly rotating, accompanied by moving black and white films at different parts of the stage which are turned on and off at different times, and on occasion the film dominates the entire set. There is a played out Schlingensief background and a foreground of the actual Wagner Parsifal .
The difficult or impossible thing for the spectator is to watch what is going on, to concentrate on the opera drama itself, and to take in the music simultaneously.
Much of the criticism of the production relates to this difficulty and some have described it as Parsifal being reduced to a film score.
However, in the light of the aforementioned concerns, much of the imagery can be justified. Schlingensief is not just representing the music drama Parsifal by Wagner, but is also representing what it means, what Wagner thought it meant, how Wagner created it, how others have received it and how this all relates to his own view of the world. In other words he has deconstructed Parsifal . In this he was following Syberberg, but without the Wagner=Hitler connection. Every image I took in seemed justified. The Dramaturg (Carl Hegemann) suggested to Schlingensief that he should seek to show in pictures and music Wagner's near-death experience (what he would have seen just as he died in Venice ) and perhaps this was also intended. Further, the Bayreuth program book contains essays on 'Religion and Art' and also on Carrie Pringle, the flower maiden with whom Wagner is supposed to have had an affair with just before his death.
In Act 1, most scenes depict a Namibian or Nepalese detention facility, with tents, cages, barbed wire, sentry towers. A kraal. Or even Guantanamo Bay . However, there are background live and film images of Wahnfried, Venice (Palazzo Vendramin, Wagner's place of death). Gurnemanz's narration is played out. There are images of two men castrating (or masturbating ) each other. There are vague images of other people. There are images of what looks like flow cytometry of cells in a wound healing or non healing process (some have said these are amoebae) . There are images of knights being entrapped. Kundry wears graffiti spattered overalls; Parsifal is a Christ like figure in white, as is Amfortas; Gurnemanz is also in white but has a red beard. The esquires and knights are dark skinned. Throughout various religious symbols come and go: obvious Masonic imagery and distorted pretzel shapes, said to be Mayan. The recurring hare symbol is always there and as Parsifal shoots the swan, the hare is carried on stage in a hutch and dissected by a mysterious little man in glasses (a physiologist vivisectionist). Other scenes of suffering animals (beached seals) and human squalor come and go. The transformation music is accompanied by a larger screen image showing distorting shapes like speeded up embryonic growth and further religious symbols, including the hare with a wound. In the first communion of the knights, they are represented as a collection of clerical figures from all races and religions, black, white and coloured, including Rabbis. There is never a Grail to be seen except at the very end of Act 3 when a fleeting film shows devil worshippers drinking from a cup. Throughout, one reads graffiti on bits of the constantly moving set 'Queste' (Italian for these), 'Heilige Hunde betet fuer uns' ( holy dogs pray for us) , 'Kraal' (South African for compound, pun on Gral or grail) , Stallorder, Runen, Gott' ( state of pigsty, runes, God) , 'Wir wieder winnen' ( we win again , winnen is Anglo German) .
There was no customary awed silence a t the end of Act 1- rather a booing and applause competition, won eventually by the applause.
Act 2 is a tour de force for Klingsor who is black, naked to the waist and wears a weird headpiece suggestive of paganism. 'Our' John Wegner dances about violently and has to do some quite heavy gymnastics on the stage including swinging and climbing. He said in an interview that his Australian Rules football background helped in this. In the Herzeleide narration of Kundry, a boy Parsifal is also present (following Syberberg). The catching of the spear and the sign of the cross is fudged: Klingsor merely places the spear in the ground; it is obscured by lighting and Parsifal picks up a shepherd's crook beside it. However, the destruction of the magic garden is illusrated by Klingsor rushing up a ladder into a rocket or nuclear missile which is launched into space. Kundry appears in several incarnations, including a fat Arabian look in Act 3 and in a 1930s Deanna Durbin dress in Act 2. After the kiss she is spattered all over with blood. Given that Schlingensief varies the show each time, I cannot honestly say I saw Van Gogh's sunflowers, the Mona Lisa, and Tomato soup tins that other critics noticed.
Act 3 shows ruined buildings and an aged Gurnemanz. Progressively, the hare images dominate and the hare decays, with liquefying flesh, flies, worms and maggots appearing. As Gurnemanz muses on the equality of all living things, a laser display of either burgeoning blossoms or astrological maps dominates the stage. The Good Friday music is accompanied by an extraordinary burst of growth of living things, plant and animal, normal and abnormal, both concrete and abstract. The second transformation scene is equally disturbing. Wagner's religious actors are transformed into military and political actors in the second knights scene. A bloated capitalist appears and the final 'Redemption to the Redeemer' is played out as a film of the decaying hare dominates the stage, fading to black.
John Wegner said in an interview that the production would appeal to younger people and the recycling of nature was a valid image. Others have accused Schlingensief of excessive self promotion to 'beat up' a contrived scandal.
Boulez conducted a finely crafted and perfectly played impressionistic score in exactly 4 hours, fast but not as fast as in 1970. Unfortunately, the music apart from the Prelude was often put into the background by the stage action. However, in a strange sort of way it seemed coordinated at least in colour and rhythm if not in precise choreography. I would like to see it again; not actually trying to look at everything, but just let it be semi subliminal. It is particularly dangerous to use opera glasses in this respect. Notable among the singers were Robert Holl and John Wegner. Marco- Burmeister was rather weak as Amfortas and Michelle de Young variable. Endrik Wottrich was an engaging Parsifal.
Special mention must be made of the costume designer Tabea Braun for the amazing range of costumes.
Apparently Schlingensief complained and then apologised about the technical facilities available to him but to my eyes the technical production was mind blowing.
Wottrich has declared he will not return to this production because of his opinion of Schlingensief, which, as reported in Der Spiegel 34/2004, is very low indeed. However, the same magazine hints at jealous rivalry between Wottrich and Schlingensief for the affections of Katharina Wagner so the full story may be less clear. In the Festival Theatre foyer there is a letter on display from the artists to the audience exhorting the festival patrons to make up their own minds and not read the critics and gossip magazines.
Schlingensief has created a Parsifal experience that is more his than Wagner's, but I believe he has justified nearly everything I saw and heard without doing disrespect to Wagner. It is a difficult experience in the theatre unless you have a lot of background and could even be considered as a new form of art. He has attempted to bring opera into the streets. But wouldn't Wagner have wanted that. 'Kinder, macht neu [Children, make new]'.
Review by Dr Jim Leigh September 2004
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