Organization

Bayreuther Festspiele

Conductor

Horst Stein

Stage director

Wolfgang Wagner

Set designer

Costume designer

Reinhard Heinrich

Tenor

Siegfried Jerusalem

Parsifal

Soprano

Eva Randová

Kundry

Bass

Hans Sotin

Gurnemanz

Baritone

Bernd Weikl

Amfortas

Matti Salminen

Titurel

Bass-baritone

Leif Roar

Klingsor

Heinz-Klaus Ecker

Second Grail knight

Marga Schiml

First squire

Contralto

Hanna Schwarz

Second squire

Helmut Pampuch

Third squire

Singer

Mari-Anne Haeggander

Sechs Blumenmädchen

Margit Neubauer

Others

Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele

Orchestra

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

Bayreuth

Germany

The grail, a holy vessel from which Jesus drank at the last supper, and the spear with which the dying Christ was wounded, have until now determined the life of the knights in the grail castle as symbols of faith. But the magician Klingsor was excluded from the group and has been plotting revenge ever since. In an attempt to become the owner of the Grail himself, he had King Amfortas seduced by the mysteriously beautiful Kundry and snatched the holy spear from him; the resulting wound of the Grail King does not heal. Only a "pure fool" can redeem Amfortas "knowing through compassion" from his suffering. This longed-for savior is Parsifal, but the Knights of the Grail do not recognize him at first and move on to Klingsor's kingdom. Kundry is supposed to seduce him there too, but she causes that he becomes aware of his personality and his task: he seizes the spear that Klingsor throws at him and sets off for the Castle of the Grail. When he arrives there, years later, on a Good Friday, he brings the knighthood the longed-for salvation: spear and grail are reunited, and Amfortas's wound is finally healed.

Although Richard Wagner's last opera goes back to Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic "Parzival" and other, older sources about the Grail legend, Wagner used this material to create a new Parsifal poem in which elements of Christianity, Buddhism and Schopenhauerian philosophy appear side by side and as a synopsis represent Wagner's intellectual world - "Parsifal" is much more than just a testimony of Christian faith, as the name "Bühnenweihfestspiel" initially suggested. According to Wagner's decree, no theater other than Bayreuth was allowed to perform "Parsifal" for 30 years; it was not until 1914 that the work spread through the world's opera houses.
Wagner achieved the largely predominant sacred atmosphere of the music through an instrumentation modeled on organ registration, which often uses the instruments in groups (woodwinds, brass, strings). The leitmotif work is less dense in Parsifal than in "Ring des Nibelungen"; the dazzling euphony of the Grail world is contrasted with a sophisticated chromatic harmony which, for example (in the description of Parsifal's wandering about in the desolate landscape) in the prelude to the 3rd act, anticipates the twelve-tone music of the New Viennese School (just like Wagner in the Kundry-Parsifal scene of the 2nd elevator anticipates Sigmund Freud's insights into psychoanalysis).

Parsifal Wagner,Richard

Public

Approved

English

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