La Monnaie Parsifal | New Beginning

Judging by the reaction to the final sentence of my last post, I guess my Mom's not the only highly literal person reading the blog. The flight belt remark was a joke! I will wear more than that in Act 3. But yes. La Cieca got the picture right. I wear a flight belt for reasons which in the coming days will become clear.

Carmencita Uria-Monzon

Happy 2011 everyone. After a very quick trip back to celebrate Christmas with family in San Diego and Phoenix, then a concert version of Carmen in Montpellier with one of the very most important Carmen's of our time, Beatrice Uria-Monzon, I'm happily back in Brussels. It was fantastic to sing with Beatrice again. I've been a huge admirer of hers since seeing her Carmen in Marseille a few years ago, heard her in Hoffmann at the Met after that, and then having sung Don Carlos with her in Berlin. 

I'm posting this picture to prove that yes, indeed, I gave my agents a Christmas present. They don't believe me, but…

I got a haircut.

I swore I wouldn't do it, but would you blame me if I told them I did it just for them? After all the grief they gave me, begging me to join the establishment I am going to let them keep thinking I only did it for them.

ACTUALLY, I just didn't want to wear a wig thru ten performances of Parsifal (which are nearly sold out. Current count as of Jan 1st was at 89% sold. That means, it will be sold out in the coming next few days.).


I've learned considerably more about this production since returning. I don't mind saying it's a bit frustrating to have so much suspense and visual holes around us. We'd get to a big chunk of music and Roméo would lightly chuckle and say: "Oh don't to worry. I have something in mind for 'Amfortas' scene. Just be there and it will become clear. No stress. Ees okay!" For December, we'd been very slowly mapping things out, dealing with the huge technical demands of Act One's forestry and trying to use our imagination on what we would encounter around us in Act Two.

Act Two Rehearsal Space

During the Christmas/New Year break for the singers, the dancers, bondage artists and contortionists then took over the rehearsal space and began to work with playback on choreographing their parts around our imaginary selves. There are approximately 12 of them.

And never in my years of singing have I seen anything remotely like what I saw today. After the last Parsifal, I thought there was little else that could surprise me.

Dasniya Sommer, Shihari artist

I was wrong.

I'd first encountered descriptions of bondage reading Paulo Coelho's novel "Eleven Minutes." As a westerner I had some pretty acute reactions to the word. So I admit I'm a bit unsophisticated in these matters. But if I set my own preconceived notions aside I began to see what Castellucci is saying about the Plight of Kundry. There is something so elemental in the production it is actually quite terrifying.

I do know this. I'm not in Kansas anymore. My problem is, how do I write about this?

In a rehearsal today of Klingsor's scene