A new interview is published on Wagneropera.net today. Detlef Roth, Amfortas in Stefan Herheim's Parsifal production at Bayreuth talks about singing Wagner and singing at Bayreuth. Among many other interesting things, Roth explained conductor Daniele Gatti's approach to Amfortas. "Gatti," he says, "had a very clear idea about how the role should be sung. He wanted even more piano than we did in the performances. Gatti saw Amfortas as a very, very weak person, as a person immersed in his sufferance, only coming out occasionally to be king. Gatti wanted more of almost whispering, but we had to change a lot of that in the actual performances. For me, working on the singing was not so much a technical work on the voice, but more developing the interpretation, especially the colours. It was important for Gatti to have the right colours, and as many colours as possible" Detlef Roth: Amfortas' Suffering is Germany's
Wagneropera.net's blog on Richard Wagner.