This 1956 Bayreuth performance of Richard Wagner’s last opera Parsifal falls on the timeline about halfway between two justifiably famous recordings, Decca’s 1951 (mono) and Philip’s 1962 (stereo) releases, featuring the same conductor, Hans Knappertsbusch, whose luminous conducting of Parsifal (choose any one) in particular is unmatched on record. The cast, as is typically the case from this era of Bayreuth productions, can hardly be bettered: Martha Mödl, Ramón Vinay, a young Dietrich-Fischer-Dieskau (as Amfortas), Hans Hotter, Josef Greindl and Toni Blankenheim.
