Parsifal - Paris Events

Its second new Wagner this season, the Opéra national de Paris premières Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski's production of Parsifal at the Opéra Bastille, appropriately including a performance on Easter Sunday. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.
Parsifal was finished two years before Wagner's death and premièred at his specially-built theatre at Bayreuth, which to this day holds a summer festival in his honour. He termed it Bühnenweihfestpiel ("sacred festival drama") and once again dealt with the idea that only a "pure fool" can save the day.

That "pure fool" is Parsifal (Christopher Ventris), naive to the man-made complications - greed, pride, envy and stubbornness - which characterise even the sacred guardians of the Holy Grail, wounded Amfortas (Alexander Marco-Buhrmester) and his father Titruel (Victor von Halem). Only Parsifal can regain the Sacred Spear from evil Klingsor (Evgeny Nikitin). Only Parsifal is immune to the charms of Kundry (Waltraud Meier) and only Parsifal can do this because he doesn't realise the importance attached to it. Also starring is Franz Josef Selig as Parsifal's mentor Gurnemanz.

Perhaps Wagner's greatest operatic creation, a tradition has arisen that this piece should be performed on Good Friday (there is a famous orchestral passage called the Good Friday Music), but in fact it was originally premièred in July.

With one of the longest continuing operatic pedigrees in the world, the Opéra national de Paris - now housed in the modern Opéra Bastille as well as often returning to perform in the 1875 vintage Palais Garnier - can date its history back to 1669, when Robert Cambert and Abbé Pierre Perrin received Louis XIV's permission to stage opera. Subsequent important figures in Paris' operatic life include composers Lully, Rameau, Meyerbeer, Messiaen alongside lesser-known figures to modern audiences, such as Spontini, Hérold and Halévy.

The move to the new Opéra Bastille took place (admittedly amidst controversy) in 1990, but the company's two principal venues have allowed operatic life to flourish again in the 21st century. Since 2004 Gérard Mortier (previously intendant at the Salzburg Festival) has been director. When he retires in 2009, he is replaced by Nicolas Joel, when Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan becomes music director.