Richard Wagner’s opera based on a mystical story is about a young man, Parsifal, who grew up in a forest, away from knightly valor and burdened with the search for the holy grail, whose magic heals deadly wounds.

Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera

The play of director Alvis Hermanis takes action to the Vienna psychiatric clinic „Wagner Spital“ built in an elegant Austrian ‘Jugendstil’. Time and space are intertwined in a tangle of events, which are meaningless to resist. The space becomes transient, and time turns into a “here-room” filled with hospital beds, which was solemnly announced “Die Zeit ist da.” The hypnotic dream of the heroes becomes a schizophrenic reality of the patients of the clinic, for example the procession of knights turns in the procession of the parishioners of the Catholic Church Am Steinhof on Good Friday.

The dome of the church is solemnly hoisted over the human brain – the foremost of the unexplored mysteries which, like the holy Grail, is to be uncovered by Amfortas (Thomas Johannes Mayer) oppressed by the sufferings of an incurable wound.

Kundry, beautifully voiced by Elena Zidkova is torn apart between the other world and the desire to get rid of the curse of the magician Klingsor (Boaz Daniel).
Kundry – the most beautiful of them all, is like a Samakhan queen dressed in gold knows all the secrets, seducing the naive Parsifal (Simon O’Neill) gives him a kiss and once again, through electric shock, awakened by the authoritarian force of the main psychiatrist (René Pape in the role of Gurnemants) becomes fierce in this the world. The voluptuousness turns into pain, a wonderful forest – into the desert, from which Parsifal replaces Tirturel (Ryan Speedo Green) with the new King of the Grail.

Atmosphere of the play

The atmosphere of dramatic anticipation, so skillfully created by the orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, is permeated with the magical mystery of the accomplishment of the Atonement and musically enhanced by the introduction of an additional choir.

The drama Parsifal is the last opera written by the brilliant Wagner and presented on Wednesday 24th of April. The Vienna State Opera completes the cycle of works by Richard Wagner in 2019. The opera “Lohengrin” will open the Wagner season in the 2020th year.

Alexander Justus

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