Your basket is empty

Categories:

Results 1 to 20 out of a total of 3224
From
HI-RES$24.70
CD$19.76

Wagner: Parsifal by Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch

Opera - Released February 8, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

Hi-Res
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111

Hans Knappertsbusch

Opera - Released July 26, 2007 | Orfeo

From
HI-RES$10.79
CD$8.09

Wagner: Parsifal

Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig

Opera - Released January 1, 1978 | Eterna

Hi-Res
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111

Martha Modl

Opera - Released June 2, 2023 | Profil Edition Guenter Haenssler

Booklet
The production of Wagner's overgrown Grail tale Parsifal from the shrine at Bayreuth, directed by the composer's grandson Wieland and first staged in 1951, was famously spare in its design; the conductor, Hans Knappertsbusch ("Kna," to perfect Wagnerites), thought the sets were still to be constructed and was chagrined to find that there really were very few. Vocally, however, the music was luxuriant. By the time of this 1955 live recording, most of the singers, including Martha Mödl as Kundry, were veterans of the production, and there was a strong newcomer, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Amfortas, already with his characteristic honeyed tone. The production was recorded in the studio in 1951, with somewhat better sound than on this release, but really, the live sound is impressive for 1955 (some of the credit should go to Hänssler Classic's remastering), and text intelligibility is great. Further, Knappertsbusch is known to have preferred live performance to recording, and the production benefits from a good deal of forward motion; sample around and compare timings with other recordings, for almost everywhere, Knappertsbusch comes in faster than average. Yet the music never feels rushed in any way. Of course, several generations of Wagner singers have come and gone since this recording was made, but for those wanting to experience Wagner "from the source," this may be a prime choice despite its age. © James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$24.71
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal

Evgeny Nikitin

Opera - Released February 1, 2012 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
Parsifal is the second installment in Pentatone's ambitious project to record Wagner's ten important operas between in 2011 and 2013 in celebration of the bicentennial of his birth, featuring live concert performances with Marek Janowski leading Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin. Janowski is an old hand at Wagner, having conducted the first (and very fine) digital recording of The Ring, and he brings a sure understanding and unified conception to Parsifal. One of its most immediately noticeable characteristics is its urgency, which essentially means faster tempos. His version at three and three-quarters hours is nearly a half hour shorter than classic recordings like Knappertsbusch's 1951 Bayreuth version and Solti's Decca release. What's gained is a momentum and sense of dramatic movement in an opera that's notorious for bogged-down performances. It also has the effect of making the opera seem more personal, even intimate at moments, because the momentum gives the dialogue between characters such immediacy. Janowski is sensitive to allowing the music plenty of space to unfold where it calls for evoking a timeless expansiveness, such as the scenes in the Hall of the Grail. The orchestra and chorus perform with seamless assurance and with a velvety sensuality. Janowski keeps textures transparent so that details of the scoring are easily audible, and that transparency also contributes to the intimacy of his reading. The exemplary vocal performances are uniformly very fine, and the singers bring an acute sense of drama to their roles and their interactions The recording is blessed with a wealth of expressive, resonant, tonally sumptuous, and clearly differentiated low voices, including Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas, Dimitry Ivashchenko as Titurel, Franz-Josef Selig as Gurnemanz, and Eike Wilm Schulte as Klingsor. Christian Elsner is a passionate Parsifal and his ringing tenor is heroic and robust. As Kundry, Michelle DeYoung sings with warmth and poignancy and is especially effective in her rich lower register. The sound of the hybrid multichannel SACD is immaculate and spacious.© TiVo
From
CD$8.09

Wagner : Parsifal

Herbert Kegel

Opera - Released August 12, 2008 | Brilliant Classics

Distinctions 5 de Diapason
From
HI-RES$24.70
CD$19.76

Wagner: Parsifal WWV 111 by Clemens Krauss

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Opera - Released October 21, 2021 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$63.09
CD$54.69

Wagner: Parsifal

Jonas Kaufmann

Classical - Released March 1, 2024 | Sony Classical

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
The world was due for a major new recording of Wagner's Parsifal, with some years having elapsed since the monster, four-hour work had seen a fresh one. There are a number of attractions to this one, recorded live at the Vienna State Opera in 2021. First is the production, designed and directed from house arrest in Russia by Kirill Serebrennikov. The version was controversial at the time, and subsequent events have made it timely. Serebrennikov transplants the tale to a modern prison, with characters in tracksuits and the like; the complex witch Kundry is (believe it or not) a photojournalist. None of this affects the singing, which is done straight, but the release graphics give one an idea. The major draw for many listeners, and probably the one that put the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024, will be the presence of star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, in fine form in the title role (and album listeners get to avoid the flashback staging designed to circumvent that fact that the 50-something Kaufmann was playing a young man). The instrumental work from the Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper is very strong. However, what really puts this performance in the history books is the performance of mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca as Kundry. This was apparently her first appearance in a Wagner opera, but in the top-volume material in Act III, she is fully Kaufmann's equal. Some may find that she carries the whole production, with a rising line of intensity running through the whole giant structure. In any event, even listeners who own the Parsifal of Herbert von Karajan or one of the other classic readings will want to check this recording out.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$19.77$24.71(20%)
CD$11.86$19.77(40%)

Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C

Simon O´Neill

Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | BR-Klassik

Hi-Res Booklets
Taken from several live performances at the Gasteig in Munich in early 2023, this recording of Wagner's Siegfried made classical best-seller charts later that year. It is part of a series that began in 2016, intending to record the entire Ring Cycle live. The recordings have all been successful, and this is testimony to the skills of conductor Simon Rattle. There are conductors' Wagner performances, and there are singers' Wagner performances. This is the former. The Bavarian Radio Symphony seizes the listener's attention from the opening bell, and the energy never flags. There is nothing objectionable about the singers, but few of them will stick in one's head. The exception, perhaps, is soprano Anja Kampe as Brunnhilde (and Danae Kontora as the Voice of the Forest Bird); Kampe, of course, doesn't enter until the end, but at that point, everything comes together for a really thrilling conclusion of "radiant love, laughing death." Although these were live performances, they might just as well have been made in a studio; Bavarian Radio's engineering in its hometown is superbly detailed, and the audience discipline is awesome (no applause or other crowd noise of any kind is retained). There is a liveliness to Rattle's Wagner that sets it apart from performances in the German tradition, and it is fully on display in this recording.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75 (Live)

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Opera - Released November 3, 2017 | Orfeo

From
CD$60.09

Wagner : Parsifal

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1981 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Distinctions Gramophone Record of the Year
From
HI-RES$15.09
CD$13.09

Richard Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35 / Don Juan, Op. 20 / Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28

Vasily Petrenko

Classical - Released September 13, 2019 | Lawo Classics

Hi-Res
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75 (Recorded Live 2011)

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

Classical - Released June 22, 2018 | Opus Arte

Booklet
Recorded live at a performance in Bayreuth on 14 August 2011, this Lohengrin naturally benefits a lot from the place's amazing sound; the listener will surely forgive the little noises from around the stage or hall: it is, after all, a very small price to pay for having a front-row seat at a live performance, and with the element of risk – taken by the singers, at least – which heightens the experience. The production brings together some of the greatest voices of the day, led by the tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, a real free radical, who started his career as... horn player in the Hamburg Philharmonic! But soon he heard the call of the lyrical, and he began a superb career as a tenor, first lighter, in Mozartian roles, and then more powerful with Wagner and the roles of the young "Heldentenor." As Elsa, we have Annette Dasch, who had already made a much-remarked-upon début in Bayreuth the year before – also as Elsa. Bass Heinrich Zeppenfeld is following the same Bayreuth trajectory, as King Henry the Fowler. The ambiguous Ortrud is played by Petra Lang, who since moved on to play Isolde, also at Bayreuth, a few years later – a fine rendition. © SM/Qobuz
From
HI-RES$48.09
CD$41.69

Parsifal

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released May 29, 2011 | Challenge Classics

Hi-Res
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C & Parsifal, WWV 111 (Excerpts) [Live]

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Opera - Released February 4, 2022 | Profil

Booklet
The recordings here by Martha Mödl from 1955 document not only her impeccable rendering of the German, but also her singular singing status. She started out as a mezzo-soprano, but in 1949, with her first Kundry, she switched to the vocal range midway between mezzo and dramatic soprano, and in March 1952 she sang her first Brünnhilde. She was there from the very start in Neubayreuth: From 1951 to 1955, Mödl sang Kundry in all of the Parsifal performances and only began alternating with Astrid Varnay from 1956. She was also cast in the Ring from 1951, first as Gutrune and the Third Norn, and from 1953 also as Brünnhilde and in 1954 as Sieglinde as well. There, too, she alternated with Varnay, who had been performing almost without pause as Brünnhilde since 1951. Mödl sang Isolde in 1952 and 1953. To the director Wieland Wagner she was a “high dramatic soprano free of pathos”. He valued the way her “voice, personality and performance formed an absolutely inseparable whole”. Her stage presence can no longer be experienced through the recordings, but the vocal penetration of the roles can be. © Profil
From
CD$65.25

Wagner: Die Walkure (1953)

Ramón Vinay

Classical - Released February 1, 2015 | Myto Historical

From
HI-RES$26.49
CD$18.99

The Wagner Project

Matthias Goerne

Classical - Released November 24, 2017 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
From
HI-RES$21.09
CD$18.09

Wagner: Götterdämmerung

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released June 30, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Hi-Res