Elder Statesmen: The Hallé’s sonorous ‘Parsifal’ is distinguished by John Tomlinson’s performance of Gurnemanz, finds Niall Hoskin

Review of Parsifal, conducted Elder, Royal Albert Hall, London, 2013 (Hallé, 4 CDs).

March 2018, Volume 12, Number 1, 91–3.

The Hallé has finally issued on its own label the latest in a series of concert performances of Wagner. This Parsifal dates from the 2013 BBC Proms and follows Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung.

The orchestra is in tremendous shape: Elder has made it his own as no other music director since Barbirolli. His operatic pedigree is in no doubt: he was fourteen years at the helm of ENO, not long after Goodall had set a gold standard for Wagner performances there, and Elder conducted Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 1999 Parsifal.