A Glimpse of Goodall at the Garden: David Breckbill extends a cautious welcome to a ‘Parsifal’ of ‘hallowed memory’

For many years the market of audio Wagner recordings has been flooded by broadcasts from Bayreuth and the Metropolitan Opera, but very little live Wagner from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, has appeared. In recent years record companies have begun to show interest in filling this gap. Pearl’s release in 2005 of excerpts from Siegfried and Götterdämmerung (broadcast in 1954) and Testament’s more recent release of a complete 1957 Ring are both important documents, and the Royal Opera House’s own label is now weighing in. Having already issued a 1997 Meistersinger conducted by Bernard Haitink, it now offers as its second Wagner release the present Parsifal from 1971. This is a production of hallowed memory for many British Wagnerians.