“Confession will cause guilt to end in suffering,” the mysterious Kundry tells Parsifal in Richard Wagner’s last opera, continuing that “self-realization turns foolishness into sense.” These seminal lines, delivered during a failed seduction scene, should lead any spectator to question whether Parsifal is truly a Christian work. That commonplace assumption led to the opera’s neglect in resolutely anti-Christian Nazi Germany, disappearance from performance in the atheistic Soviet Union, and not infrequent overlooking by Wagnerians in freer societies who do not go in for Jesus or His teachings.
Kundry’s unfavorable comparison of the sacrament of penance to the original sin inherent in acquiring knowledge for human self-actualization is only one questionable factor in an opera (or, as Wagner labeled it, a “staged sacred festival play,” or Bühnenweihfestspiel) that owes more to Buddhism as refracted through Wagner’s reading of the philosopher Artur Schopenhauer than it does to the Christian faith. Schopenhauer’s lengthy tome, The World as Will and Representation, written by a man who had little love for or faith in humanity, advocated art as a communal spiritual act that would redeem civilization and envisioned salvation through renunciation of the will.
In the universe of Parsifal, in which a band of knights protects the Holy Grail and the sacred lance that pierced Christ on the Cross, neither God nor heaven are ever mentioned. The physical artefacts of Jesus’ mortal time on earth are preserved, with the Grail granting those who perform its rite eternal life in the world in time rather than a redemptive afterlife. Despite the abundant Christian symbolism, faith is subjective, suffering is punishment rather than virtue, salvation can be delivered by a righteous man rather than God or faith alone, confession and atonement have neither meaning nor effect, and, in the opera’s central prophecy, a disrupted human order will be restored not by a second coming of Christ but by “a pure fool made wise through pity” who emerges from the ranks of mere mortals.
The need for such a character is urgent, for the Grail King Amfortas lost the sacred lance during a moment of passion with Kundry. Compromised and defenseless, the malevolent sorcerer Klingsor dealt him a wound that will not heal. Klingsor had once sought to become a knight but was found insufficiently pure. Having castrated himself in self-loathing, Klingsor instead devoted his energies to evil enchantment, coveting the Grail and using Kundry to seduce knights into his service. Entering the action as a pure fool, Parsifal successfully invades Klingsor’s realm, resists Kundry’s temptation while promising her salvation along with Amfortas, and defeats the sorcerer. After many years of wandering, he returns to the realm of the Grail on Good Friday, wiser and empathetic enough to save Kundry’s soul and heal Amfortas’s wound. Having fulfilled his role, the opera ends with Parsifal anointed as the new Grail King to the cryptic choral words “Salvation to the Savior.”
Pierre Audi’s production for the Bavarian State Opera premiered in 2018 and could stand replacement. The Grail realm is a forest of leafless, spongy-looking trees, some of which combine center stage to form a crude shrine. In the desiccated Act III version, the set is turned upside down, with the trees sprouting from the ceiling. Klingsor’s realm is a cartoonish castle that resembles a child’s drawing, constructed from material that can expand and contract. The visuals barely pass as a recognizably traditional setting while also failing to offer any symbolic interpretation of the work. Florence von Gerkan’s costumes range from bland tunics for the Grail realm characters to awkward body suits, suggesting the distended breasts and stomachs found in prehistoric figurines for Klingsor and his seductive flower maidens. Archaeologists do not really know what those stylized human figures were intended to mean, and they would have equal difficulty discerning any meaning if they were in the audience here. Kundry, at least, gets something resembling a penitent’s black robes when we see her chastened and forgiven in Act III.
As often happens these days, Parsifal’s ‘healing’ of Amfortas is not really healing in Audi’s production, but a release from pain into the embrace of death. Conversely, Parsifal’s traditional healing of Kundry’s tortured soul, which Wagner’s stage directions indicated should mercifully end her long supernatural existence in redemptive death, leaves her inexplicably alive. The rationale for this inversion makes little sense unless one’s view of the opera is refracted through a prism of modern gender politics.
Fortunately, a strong cast was on stage, with a standard of vocal talent so elevated that it distracted from the disappointing visuals. The American tenor Clay Hilley is relatively new on the scene, having appeared last season in Bayreuth’s short-lived but reasonably appealing stand-in production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. A natural heldentenor, he weathered the role of Parsifal brilliantly with only minor—and eminently forgivable—signs of fatigue toward the end. His is a career to watch.
Veteran Wagnerian soprano Nina Stemme took on Kundry, a mezzo part with a challenging lower register, some years ago and radiated her customarily excellent sonorities spanning octaves and ranges. Her superb dramatic skills, especially her glances evoking the best silent film actresses of old, were irresistible to anyone other than Parsifal.
The high baritone part of Amfortas fell comfortably to Gerald Finley, who was made a Kammersänger of the company on stage immediately after the performance preceding the one under review. His agony captured a noble dignity without descending into pitiful fecklessness. Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s practiced Klingsor was dark and menacing, almost enough to overcome his absurd costuming, which seemed determined to force his fat suit’s belly button on the hall. The splendid young Kuwaiti bass Tareq Nazmi took on Gurnemanz just two years after first essaying the role in Geneva. After a long apprenticeship in comprimario roles, he is now breaking out into a well-deserved career in major roles. His refined technique unspun Gurnemanz’s long narrations with uncommon clarity and unchallengeable authority. The Hungarian bass Bálint Szabó, well known for his bigger roles in Budapest, sang Titurel, Amfortas’s off-stage, weakened father.
Ádám Fischer has long run a storied, if underappreciated, festival of Wagner’s works in Budapest, which has sometimes advertised itself as an alternative to Wagner’s theater in Bayreuth. He brought his impressive mastery of Wagner’s score out in full force here, with a well paced but deeply incisive reading of the score from one of the world’s finest orchestras.
