★★★★☆
Sir Mark Elder celebrates his 70th birthday today, but the conductor is not likely to be spending the day kicking back on the sofa with a beer, unwrapping pressies. Last night he led a special performance with the Hallé, of which he is the chief conductor, and members of the other two Manchester orchestras, the BBC Philharmonic and the Manchester Camerata — a message of unity organised in the wake of the terrorist attack to offer the city some consolation. On June 4 he is at the helm of both the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic for Schoenberg’s mighty Gurrelieder.
Elder has turned the Hallé into a northern powerhouse of its own, but don’t discount the maestro picking up another job in the capital. With rumours swirling again that Antonio Pappano may not renew his contract as music director of the Royal Opera beyond 2020, Elder’s chances are fancied by many.
His operatic credentials barely need restating — he was a linchpin of English National Opera during its so-called powerhouse era — but this performance of Parsifal, recorded from a BBC Prom in 2013, the Wagner anniversary year, is a testament to Elder’s ability to draw the very best from an orchestra, and to traverse the huge peaks (and troughs) of Wagner’s scores with unerring skill.
Yes his tempos are mostly slow, but the Hallé plays Wagner’s last opera with shimmering beauty. A real sense of unworldliness sustains the Act I ceremonial, in which the Holy Grail is unveiled to an audience of sinning knights and one uncomprehending “pure fool”, Parsifal himself. In the Albert Hall, Elder played with spatial effects, putting various choruses in the galleries, and some of the impact of this comes through in the recording — the Trinity Boys Choir sound suitably celestial from on high, and their earthly counterparts are the Royal Opera Chorus in splendid voice. Throughout, Elder’s grand view also finds room for many telling details: a smear of curdled brass and the toxic caress of the woodwinds as Kundry, the arch-seductress, attempts to entrap the only man who could save her.
Frustratingly, Elder’s singers aren’t all operating at the same high level. The Prom saw two key singers substituted at short notice. John Tomlinson’s Gurnemanz is always electric in a theatre, but his gnarly bass doesn’t record well and there are some very wiry moments here. Detlef Roth’s Amfortas is dignified but pallid, unbalancing some of the opera’s key confrontations. The tenor Lars Cleveman doesn’t have the right boyish tone for Parsifal either, although his gutsy high notes are impressive. However, very much on the credit sheet, Katarina Dalayman’s Kundry is a class act, sensual and sensitively sung. Even when she’s carrying out the nasty work of Tom Fox’s vividly realised baddie, Klingsor, she retains a very affecting nobility. (Hallé)