Opera Essentials: Parsifal

Who composed Parsifal?  

Parsifal was written by the German composer, Richard Wagner (1813-1883), and the premiere took place in 1882 at Bayreuth, Wagner’s purpose-built opera house. It was the first opera Wagner wrote especially for Bayreuth, and it was his final completed opera before his death in Venice in 1833.

What is the opera Parsifal about?  

Parsifal tells the story of a young, seemingly innocent man, who is adopted as the saviour of the knights of the Grail, and their ailing leader, Amfortas. In an attempt to corrupt Parsifal, the sorcerer Klingsor sends his flowermaidens and the witch-like Kundry to seduce him, but Parsifal resists them all. Years later, Parsifal returns to the kingdom, where he finds both Kundry and Amfortas still seeking redemption.

Who is Kundry?  

Kundry is the only principal female character in the opera. Many centuries ago, she laughed at Christ on the cross, and ever since then, she has been condemned to an endless cycle of rebirth and suffering. Tormented by guilt, she is both seducer and slave – bound to do the bidding of the wicked Klingsor, and infamous for her seduction of Amfortas – but through Parsifal, can she find a path to redemption?

What is Parsifal Based On? 

Parsifal is based on Parzifal, a 13th-century poem by the medieval German poet, knight and composer, Wolfram von Eschenbach. At 16,000 lines long, and divided into 16 books, it tells a truly epic tale which was most probably inspired by an even earlier French text, Perceval: ou, le conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes. The hero’s journey from naïve youth to enlightened guardian of the Grail is a classic fairy-tale trope.

What is the most famous music from Parsifal? 

Parsifal is best known for the sublime 15-minute orchestral Prelude or Vorspiel at the start of the opera, which conjures the mysterious and awe-inspiring world of the Grail. Act II features Kundry’s tender, impassioned aria, ‘Ich sah das Kind’ (‘I saw the child’) in which she recalls memories of Parsifal’s mother. Also popular is the radiant Act III Good Friday Music, (also known as the Good Friday Spell), another orchestral interlude depicting the beauty of the Grail kingdom.

Parsifal (tenor): A naïve youth, from outside the Grail community.

Kundry (mezzo-soprano): a guilt-ridden woman and witch, condemned to endless rebirth for laughing at Christ on the cross, and bound to serve Klingsor’s will.

Amfortas (baritone): The leader of the Grail knights, afflicted by a wound that will not heal, inflicted by the vengeful Klingsor.

Gurnemanz (bass): An elder and spiritual guide to the Grail community. He hopes Parsifal will be the promised saviour of the knights.

Klingsor (bass-baritone): A disgraced knight, who was rejected by the Grail community because of his insatiable lust. He castrated himself in a doomed bid to sate his desires, and then stole the sacred spear of Christ from the Grail knights, stabbing Amfortas with it.

Titurel (bass): The former leader of the Grail knights, and the father of Amfortas.

Amfortas, King of the knights of the Grail, suffers from a wound that will not heal. The Grail community guards two sacred relics: the Holy Grail (Christ’s cup from the Last Supper), and the spear that pierced his side on the cross. Klingsor once sought admission to the Grail brotherhood. Unable to achieve the required chastity, he castrated himself but was still denied admission. He became their enemy, creating an enchanted realm to lure the knights from their vows. Amfortas set out to defeat Klingsor but was seduced by Kundry, allowing Klingsor to seize the sacred spear and wound him. Only the same spear can heal the wound. A prophecy promises Amfortas salvation through a ‘pure fool, made wise through compassion’.

Suspecting the stranger might be the prophesied ‘pure fool’, Gurnemanz takes him to witness the Grail ceremony. Amfortas’s father Titurel commands him to unveil the Grail, renewing the community’s strength but also prolonging Amfortas’s life and agony. Amfortas resists the ritual, longing for death, but finally submits. The young man watches Amfortas’s suffering with profound distress, yet cannot understand what he has experienced. Disappointed, Gurnemanz drives him away.

Kundry calls him by his forgotten name, ‘Parsifal’, awakening childhood memories. She reveals that after Gamuret’s death, Herzeleide raised him far from weapons and war to protect him from his father’s fate. Kundry describes his mother’s devotion and the grief Parsifal’s departure caused her. He, in return, grasps his own part in her suffering.

Kundry offers him a kiss, invoking his mother’s love while awakening sexual desire. Suddenly Parsifal understands the suffering he witnessed at the Grail: confronted with the same woman and the same temptation to which Amfortas succumbed, he experiences Amfortas’s agony as his own. Through compassion, the ‘pure fool’ has become wise.

Parsifal rejects Kundry. She reveals that she once laughed at Christ on his way to the cross and has since been condemned to pass through life after life, remembering her past existences. Longing for release, she begs Parsifal to give himself to her, but he understands that yielding would only repeat Amfortas’s fall. Kundry calls for Klingsor, who hurls the sacred spear at Parsifal. Parsifal seizes it, and Klingsor’s realm collapses.

A stranger approaches with the sacred spear. Gurnemanz recognises Parsifal, finally returned after years of wandering. Learning what has happened, Parsifal grieves that he has returned too late. Kundry washes Parsifal’s feet, and Gurnemanz anoints him King of the Grail. Parsifal baptises Kundry, who sinks lifeless to the ground, finally released from her cycle of successive lives. The knights carry in Titurel’s body and demand that Amfortas unveil the Grail. He refuses, begging them to kill him rather than prolong his agony. Parsifal touches Amfortas’s wound with the sacred spear, bringing his suffering to an end.

Performance History: a long composition process

Wagner first set down ideas for Parsifal in 1845 after reading Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th-century Germanic poem Parzival. Over the next thirty years he periodically returned to his scenario for the opera. He completed the libretto in just over a month; the composition of the music took two years; the complete score another three.

Wagner completed the score of Parsifal in January 1882 – 6 years after the first complete performance of his epic Ring cycle tetralogy in 1876 (find out more at our Ring cycle Essentials page here) – and the opera had its premiere at his Bayreuth Festival in July 1882. 

After the premiere, an embargo was placed on the work, forbidding performances outside the Bayreuth Festival. The Metropolitan Opera, New York, broke the embargo in 1903 and it was officially lifted in 1914.  

Why was Wagner drawn to Parzifal?

Wagner first read Parzival in the summer of 1845, as a 32-year-old Kapellmeister. Two episodes from von Eschenbach’s poem had caught in his mind: the moment at which Parzival, innocent and brash, blunders into the Grail castle and sees Amfortas; and the arrival of Parzival, now a knight concealed in his armour, is asked by a forlorn old man why he is bearing arms on Good Friday. To invent a dramatic plot that would connect these scenes with each other was Wagner’s task, subconsciously and consciously, of many years. While Parsifal is clearly rooted in Christian theology, towards the end of Wagner’s life, the composer became increasingly fascinated with Buddhist mythology, and this is reflected in Kundry’s journey from endless rebirth to redemption.

A new path to redemption

Wagner eventually crafted a plot in which Parsifal resists the same seduction (by Kundry) that Amfortas, the Grail leader, yielded to. Wagner realised that there was powerful symmetry in this structure, and he sought to convey the central character’s transformation in the powerful second Act. The opera embodies a reversal of Wagner’s earlier convictions – his obsession with redemption through love – instead advocating for redemption through chastity and renunciation. Only through resisting the love of Kundry is Parsifal able to gain compassion (Mitleid) for Amfortas’s suffering, and to offer healing to the Grail community. 

Kundry

The character of Kundry is one of opera’s most fascinating heroines. Both a messenger of the Grail knights and the slave of the disgraced knight Klingsor, in Wagner’s libretto, she arrives on horseback, and is described by other characters as a witch, a wild woman, and Herodias (the scheming wife of King Herod). Her tale begins with laughter – she mocked Christ on the cross. Her story therefore was ruled by sorrow: she is doomed to an endless cycle of suffering and rebirth: the female equivalent of the hero of Wagner’s earlier opera, The Flying Dutchman. Bound to Klingsor’s will, she attempts to seduce Parsifal, and the kiss they share triggers Parsifal’s own epiphany, of compassion for Amfortas.

A Sacred Ceremony

Wagner described Parsifal not as an opera, but as a Bühnenweihfestspiel (a ‘stage festival play’, or a ‘festival play for the consecration of the stage’), reflecting his ambition to transform the theatre into a sacred space through the course of the performance. Wagner only intended the opera to be performed at Bayreuth, where he believed the acoustic and aesthetic conditions were perfect. However, Wagner’s own patron, King Ludwig II, was the first to break the 30-year embargo in a private performance in Munich just a few years after the premiere. The next performance outside Bayreuth was by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1903.

‘Here time becomes space’: The Music of Parsifal

When Gurnemanz leads the confused young Parsifal to the temple of the Grail for the first time, he sings: ‘Here time becomes space’. In many ways, Parsifal’s initiation to the Knights’ community reflects the listener’s journey into Wagner’s musical kingdom. Through Wagner’s long, arching phrases and his use of Leitmotifs (musical themes which return and evolve throughout the opera), our concept of time is suspended.

Creating a Spiritual Sound

To create a spiritual atmosphere, Wagner draws on a variety of religious musical themes in his score. An ancient, ascending melody, known as the ‘Dresden Amen’, is transformed into a transcendent expression of the Grail in the Prelude, returning throughout the opera. Wagner also uses a four-note bell motif (the notes, C, G, A, and E) to evoke the majesty of the Grail Hall in Act I, and its destruction in Act III.

Church Bells in Parsifal

To evoke the sound of the bells at required pitches, Wagner commissioned his friend, Eduard Steingraeber, to construct a unique piano-like structure with four massive keys – and combined this with tam-tams, gongs and a tuba at the Bayreuth premiere. Despite these efforts, Wagner remained unsatisfied. After the composer’s death, his wife, Cosima Wagner commissioned four huge metal barrels to make the sound, and after the embargo was lifted, other opera houses had to find their own solutions, with some employing synthesisers, to mixed effects. In 2013, The Royal Opera used tubular bells and bell plates, together with a close-miked piano.