Daniel Barenboim and Harry Kupfer followed their acclaimed “Ring” cycle (discussed in last week’s column) with Richard Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal, which, if anything, was even more successful. Alas, the film of this version has been long unavailable.
Scene from Syberberg’s Parsifal (1982)
Comparing their geometric, sparse Parsifal to that of Neues Kino director Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s controversial 1982 multi-layered [...]
In 1976, at Pierre Boulez’s suggestion, Wolfgang Wagner brought in the 31 year old progressive French stage and film director Patrice Chereau to produce a new “Der Ring Des Nibelungen” cycle for the centenary of the Bayreuth Festival, and aptly teamed him with Boulez as conductor. The result scandalized and shook the entire opera world. [...]
“Headmasters never sing!” –line sung by the headmaster in Help! Help! The Globolinks
DIRECTED BY: Joachim Hess, from a production of composer/librettist Giancarlo Menotti
FEATURING: The Hamburg State Opera
PLOT: In this children’s opera, the world has been invaded by bizarre alien creatures named Globolinks, who are allergic to music. A bus full of children returning to boarding school breaks down [...]
