Parsifal

“Here, time becomes space.” Parsifal (1882) is Wagner’s final opera, and it exists in an imaginative realm apart from his earlier works—some would say from all other operas. The action takes place in the mythic domain of the Grail: the sacred source of light and life, served by a brotherhood of knights. The knights, however, are failing; the sorcerer Klingsor plots against them, and their leader, Amfortas, nurses an agonising and incurable wound. Only a pure soul can bring healing, and Parsifal, the foolish, impulsive young boy who blunders into the Grail Domain, is certainly not equipped to help—yet. Wagner weaves his retelling of the legend of the Fisher King from rich and complex threads, including Christian and Buddhist mysticism and the philosophy of Schopenhauer. But he clothes it in music unlike anything else he ever wrote: lyrical, luminous and expansive, probing the depths of anguish and the sweetness of redemption in orchestral sound that Debussy described as “lit from within”. Wagner called Parsifal a “Consecrational Festival Drama,” and he intended that every performance should be a special occasion. The demands that it makes on performers and audiences alike mean that this is still the case. One way or another, it leaves few listeners unmoved; concert extracts such as the blissful “Good Friday Music” give only a hint of its full, transcendent power.