Parsifal and Winter Opera Round-up (2)

Last night we had the Easter production of Wagner’s Parsifal, the titan of all operatic works, at least for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. It’s a special part of the operatic calendar here, performed only twice each year – in keeping with the theme – on Good Friday and Easter Monday, a tradition dating from 1983 when the gradual communist thaw allowed Parsifal to be played again for the first time in many years, in spite of its quasi-religious themes of compassion and redemption. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was also banned here during the war years, as it was in Germany owing to its pacifistic message: the Wagnerite’s best rebuttal to the silly charge that the Master, along with his other admittedly poor character traits, was also a Nationalist Socialist – half a century or more before the Nazi party was formed  – or would necessarily have been sympathetic to most of their aims. I always go to the Monday performance (except last year, when I was in Belgrade).

The cast stays relatively stable from year to year, although some have moved on to retirement (András Molnár) or more distant destinations (goodbye László Polgár). This year we had a good mix of the old and the newish, with Judit Németh as Kundry (a little shrill at times, I liked her performances in previous years better, just as I thought István Beczelly’s Klingsor might have lost a degree or so of impotence-related menace, but both were perfectly competent) and masterful Béla Perencz as the wounded Amfortas, the Wagnerian analogue to the Fisher King (At the performance two years ago Perencz himself was a wounded king, muted by a bad cold. Fortunately, the announcer announced, they happened to have an American baritone-bass, Allan Evans, at hand visiting the company who had sung Amfortas when studying at Bayreuth years ago and who had volunteered to step in and lend his voice at the last minute, but not to act the part, which Perencz evidently could still handle. So we got the marvelous juxtaposition of the wild-haired half-mad priest-king lip-synching the words that were emerging from the mouth of what appeared to be, from three tiers up, Louis Armstrong in a tuxedo, who was booming out some pretty impressive Amfortas from a chair placed on the side of the stage.)

The new included guest Austrian bass Albert Pesendorfer, who brought the right gravity to the difficult role of Gurnemanz, although he did manage to get drowned out by the orchestra for a few seconds around the climax of the Good Friday Music. And there is something thrilling about having a native speaker of German singing about 30% of the non-choral lines of the opera, which also probably helps keep the Hungarian performers on their enunciative toes. In the title role, tenor István Kovácsházi’s, except for a few key moments, subdued take on the lost knight seemed an improvement over András Molnár, who played Parsifal more or less the same way as he played Siegfried and Siegmund, and Tannhaüser for that matter: lots of shouting. Special applause reserved for János Kovács and the orchestra, for whom the 5+ hour performance is no doubt extremely grueling, and in which they show that they are one of the main strengths of the opera company.

For the audience, composed mainly of die-hard friends of the Hungarian State Operas, this is an Easter rite in itself. The tourists and students who didn’t know what they were getting into mostly depart during the first intermission, and almost all of them by the third act, when the grandest of the music ensues, which lends a sense of both intimacy and spaciousness to the rest of us. Given the minimalism of the conservative set design and the sporadic nature of dramatic action, as well as the fact that I’ve seen it plenty of times, I’m happy to pay 2 euros to sit, with plenty of legroom and nobody nearby, next to a column in the last row of the upper tier, and stand up for a better view at the key intervals. I wasn’t completely hypnotized into am advanced spiritual state, as I’ve been sometimes at past performances of Parsifal, but then, I’ve got a lot on my mind these days, so this might have been the strongest Parsifal I’ve seen, even if I wasn’t fully receptive.

I won’t review all of the other operas I’ve seen this late season. But highlights were Gyöngyi Lukács’s Tosca with Attila Fekete as Cavaradossi and Alexandru Agache as an excellent Scarpia, played with more louche-ness and manipulative sanctimoniousness than usual, as well as somewhat less physical aggression (I am pretty sure God in fact intended for a Romanian to sing this role, which is probably just about as much fun as you can have on an opera stage). In a few weeks I’ll see Szilvia Rálik take on Tosca again. Szilvia or Gyöngyi? Gyöngyi or Szilvia?

Also, Budapest had its go at Tannhaüser, where the male leads of János Bándi and Tamás Busa, as Tannhaüser and Wolfram, if not up to Vienna standards, were still moving in the right direction. Of the females, Erika Gál gave us a delightful Venus after warming up for the first few minutes. Not to insult a grande dame of the Hungarian stage, but human typhoon Mária Temesi’s volume and presence was maybe about right for Brünnhilde at the Met, but was simply much too much for Elisabeth in Budapest. Big chunks of the audience ate it up though, presumably assuming that having to stick your fingers in your ears is the hallmark of a great dramatic soprano. And once again, the orchestra proved its magnificence, particularly the strings, with only the occasional hint of dodginess from those mischievous horns.

And finally, a Traviata that blossomed into greatness after starting out a little directionless in Act I, with Klára Kolonits as Violetta and Peter Balczó as Alfredo, not to mention the chorus, seeming a bit unsure about what to do with themselves. Even the dinner party scene seemed a bit like a too-early Sunday brunch. But then comes Act II, and out steps my man Anatolj Fokanov, with his magnificent booming, slightly nasal baritone, as Georges Germont, whereupon suddenly everyone realized they were on a stage and the whole thing clicked into a much higher gear as the other singers and later the chorus took up his lead. Act II ended up being one of the best bits of opera I’ve ever witnessed, and the audience also knew they had seen something special, demanding 6 or 7 minutes of curtain calls before the second intermission. The shorter and more melancholy Act III doesn’t have the same tension and drama as Act II, but the singers were in their groove now and I teared up a bit when Violetta finally left this unhappy world, which means they were doing something right. So this Traviata, together with Don Giovanni and Mefistofele, have been the real highlights of the season in Budapest this year So far, that is. The season doesn’t end until June, but with the improving weather even I can have too much of a good thing.

General Strike and Palm Sunday in Madrid

This January marked the sad end of Hungary’s national airline, Malév, which most people thought was a perfectly good airline with the disadvantage of being financially mismanaged in a tiny and equally financially mismanaged national market. Within minutes of the semi-sudden announcement, before even securing a deal with the recently expanded and now near-empty Ferenc Liszt airport, our new national carrier, Ryanair was advertising some rock bottom getting-to-know you rates to a large number of attractive European destinations. So I did a quick kilometer from home/forint calculation factored by average hours of sunlight in late March vis-á-vis the price of a beer in the destination city, and it turned out we would be visiting sunny Madrid for a long weekend for about 80 USD round trip each. And just in time too! I hadn’t been anywhere in ages, although an early spring in Hungary meant we wouldn't be experiencing a significant improvement weather-wise. 

This is our third trip to Spain, and first to the capital. Today it’s one of my favorite countries to visit but I might come from an American generation of liberal cultural establishment snobbism that once worshipped France and Italy, not caring so much for vitality, and looked at Spain with a bit of distaste as simultaneously the unreformed land of the Falange and a slightly less downscale version of Mexico. I’d always meant to go, but even though I’d read my Hemingway and always had a thing for Spanish wine, for some reason I never got really excited about the idea until I moved to Europe and heard glowing recommendations from various ex-pats who had lived or holidayed there. Also, a number of Hungarians of around my age or a few years older have fond memories from the late 80s, when they were free to leave the country but could only take a very limited amount of foreign currency with them, so they would buy a Eurail pass in forints and ride it to the end of the line in Spain, which was still a relatively cheap country, and live off bread and the knapsack full of sausages they had brought from home. Now Spain doesn’t seem cheap at all, especially Madrid, and especially if you are paid in forints!

Our first full day starts with a tour around the center. The first thing we notice is that Madrid is overrun with garbage. The second thing we notice is, what are all these cops in riot gear doing around the Puerta del Sol? And what does this word “Huelga” that everyone is chanting mean? “Huelga general” answers a friendly barman serving us cáfé con leche, in response to Moni’s “Che paso en la calle?” (she actually speaks some Spanish, whereas I just babble in my surprisingly effective pan-Romance mishmash peppered with bits of the Tijuana Toads). And there it is on the TV new scroll line “Huelga general” in Seville, Barcelona, Valencia… holy cow! the whole country’s on strike. 

Continuing our walk past the palace and back to Plaza Mayor, mobile units of strikers are calling the proletariat to arms, with a chant of "Hoy no se consume, hoy no se trabaja!" and towards noon (Spaniards don’t seem to like getting out of bed early, but I suppose that’s the whole point of a general strike) larger bands of communists, anarchists, and other malcontents were roaming the streets.

It’s surprising to see such a massive strike in a country with around 24 percent – and much higher for the young – unemployment: instead you would expect to see a general give-your-boss-a-hug day. But the strikers are, indeed, mostly young people, presumably university students, and they are protesting, it seems, not so much their working conditions, since most of them wouldn't have any work, but instead a set of no-doubt much-needed reforms instituted by the current government that will make their jobs, if they ever get one, much less cushy than they would have been in the past. We’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing all over Europe, I think, if not elsewhere, as the current situation unfolds. In general, I think the reforms are probably necessary, especially in a country like Spain whose real economy, no matter how far it has come, is still not that of a Denmark or even a France, but on the other hand, the kids have a point: this is more Generation XYZ funding of baby boomer profligacy.

The strikes are getting a little ugly now. The marchers are plastering red Huelga General stickers on storefronts and hectoring shopkeepers to shut their doors, which they almost all do, with an occasional scuffle breaking out in the process. McDonald’s, committed to feeding the masses, stands bravely open, covered with stickers, but KFC never even opened that morning (coz they’re chicken, hehe).

Then a horrible thought crosses our minds simultaneously: what if, on our first day in Spain, we get nothing to eat? We decide to hightail it from the center. 

At the Banco de España, there’s some graffiti but no real protesting, except some shouting cyclists. I think in most countries if you deface the reserve bank you would probably instantly have all of your identification numbers deleted and would spend the rest of your short miserable existence wandering the financial districts as a financial non-entity, searching the gutters for the odd dropped call option or bearer bond to keep body and soul together, but apparently in Spain they take such things in stride and this graffiti, like most of the stickers and other scribbles, was gone two days later. In Budapest you can still find political graffiti directed against Ferenc Gyurcsány, two prime ministerships ago.

In the Parque del Buen Retiro, people and squirrels are hard at work relaxing in spite of the strike, and on the far side of the park, where the residential neighborhoods start, everything is functioning normally, from what we can tell. We enjoy a pleasant (and inexpensive) lunch at a local café where the customers watch the strike on TV, shaking their heads disapprovingly as though it were taking place in some distant country, and not 2 kilometres away.

So we spend the rest of the day exploring the outer belt of downtown Madrid, where regular people live and play, up past the Plaza de España where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (we would see the two of them again in Budapest a few days later in Budapest dancing with members of the Bolshoi in Minkus’ eponymous ballet) guarding Franco’s bizarre Edifio España luxury apartment building.

And some old-timers attempt to explain to us the joys of pétanque.

We walked the length of this elongated park that crosses the Príncipe Pio, the hill housing the French barracks during the Napoleonic war, and the site of Goya’s masterpiece, The Third of May 1808, one of the more impressive sights in the Prado, all the more so for being painted in 1814, and not 60 years later.

And then a well-deserved glass of fino as evening set in with sore feet. Except for a cheerful gang of anarchists, the protesters were now disbanded and, banners slumped over their shoulders, were scouring the streets hoping to find an open place to have their supper.

The next day we complete our tour of now peaceful old Madrid. One advantage of the strikes is that most people seemed to have taken Friday off too, making a long weekend of it, sparing our lungs quite a bit of exhaust fumes.

This is the place to have chocolate and churros, as the wall full of autographed international celebrity photos attests.

The now-demilitarized Plaza Mayor.

The palace (this isn’t the front façade, but I am a thrall to plinths).

And various pleasant streets and views. That evening we dined at Javier Bardem’s restaurant, Bardemcillo. I didn’t know who he was but Móni says I’ve seen him in lots of movies. I know who Penelope Cruz is though. She’s his main squeeze. Anyway, Javier and Penelope are fairly good cooks, although I wouldn’t say we tasted anything truly remarkable there, except maybe for the plate of elvers with garbanzos. And the staff is friendly.

Spanish blood pudding tastes exactly Hungarian blood pudding! Except we don’t dice it up like this or gussy it up with watercress and sprouts, and we charge about two-thirds less for it. Such are the lessons of value-added marketing we must learn from our brethren in the West.

Day 3 is spent on a day-trip to Toledo via the Atocha station (the site of the 2004 terrorist attack. What happens when NATO forces leave Afghanistan? Sadly, I’m pretty sure more of these.)

Toledo is sort of the obligatory day trip for first time visitors to Madrid. As medieval cities go, there are lots of more impressive one in Europe, but it’s fun to walk around here for an afternoon, more if you have an unusually strong interest in Spanish history from the Reconquista, El Greco, or Jewish Spain prior to the Inquisition. We walked down to the new town to get lunch in a regular café, rather than an overpriced tourist restaurant.

Our fourth and final day is Palm Sunday, the first day of Santa Semana, which one day I will have to experience in Spain in its totality. After duly watching palm fronds being marched around town and into churches, we spend the day in the Prado. And not only the Prado, because half of the Hermitage has also come to visit. We toured the Hermitage in St. Petersburg a few years back, but since chances aren’t bad I will never return to Russia (whereas I probably will to Madrid) we decided to do some catching up with those work too. Anyway, as can be imagined, it was total painting overload, but I did get to fully assimilate the Brueghels (esp. The Triumph of Death), the works of Bosch and most of the Goyas, but several thousand paintings later ran out of steam to fully appreciate the more subtle Spanish masters, Velazquez in paticular.

Oh well, next time, because Madrid has definitely made it onto my list of favorite cities. I think for a next trip to Spain I would like to start and end here an extended tour through the Basque Country, Asturias, and Galicia.