Wagner and Parsifal: the Grail, the Spear and the Magician Klingsor
Bayreuth, 1882: Wagner's last work joins Wolfram von Eschenbach's Grail legend, the sorcerer Klingsor and the idea of redemption through compassion.
It was in the theatre Richard Wagner had had built in Bayreuth that Parsifal was first staged, on 26 July 1882, conducted by Hermann Levi. The composer called it neither opera nor music drama, but Bühnenweihfestspiel, a festival play for the consecration of the stage. Seven months later, on 13 February 1883, Wagner died in Venice. Parsifal thus remains his artistic testament, and at the same time one of the works most charged with religious and esoteric symbols in the whole history of musical theatre.
From Medieval Sources to the Bayreuth Stage
Wagner drew the story mainly from the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German poem from the early thirteenth century, itself linked to the Perceval or Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes, left unfinished at the end of the twelfth century. In the medieval sources the Grail takes different forms: in Chrétien it is a precious serving dish, in Wolfram a stone fallen from heaven. Wagner instead chooses the tradition that identifies it with the cup of the Last Supper.
The composer worked on the subject for a long time. According to his autobiography, the idea came to him on a Good Friday in 1857, but he himself later admitted that the memory was partly romanticised. The libretto was completed in 1877 and the score in January 1882. In the meantime Wagner had absorbed ideas from Buddhism and from Schopenhauer's philosophy, which interweave with Christian symbolism.
The Realm of the Grail and the Castle of Klingsor
The Grail is kept in the castle of Montsalvat by a brotherhood of knights led by King Amfortas, who suffers from a wound that will not heal. He was struck with the Holy Spear, the one that according to tradition pierced Christ's side, by the magician Klingsor, a knight rejected by the order who gained magic powers by violently renouncing his own sensuality.
Klingsor lives in a castle with an enchanted garden, peopled by flower maidens who seduce the knights to make them fall. In his service, against her will, is Kundry, an enigmatic figure condemned to be reborn through the centuries for having mocked Christ on the way to the cross. Kundry is at once servant of the Grail and tool of the magician, and embodies the inner division between guilt and longing for redemption.
The Pure Fool and Good Friday
A prophecy announces that only a pure fool, made wise by compassion, will be able to heal Amfortas. This is Parsifal, a youth raised in the forest, ignorant of himself. In the second act he resists Kundry's seduction and, at the moment of the kiss, understands the king's suffering. Klingsor hurls the Spear at him, and it stops suspended above his head; Parsifal seizes it, makes the sign of the cross and the enchanted castle collapses.
In the third act, after years of wandering, Parsifal reaches Montsalvat on the morning of Good Friday. The music known as the Good Friday Spell describes nature blossoming again, purified. Parsifal baptises Kundry, heals Amfortas by touching his wound with the Spear and uncovers the Grail, which glows above the knights.
Wagner wanted Parsifal to be performed only at Bayreuth, and the exclusivity was respected in Europe until the end of 1913. Even today many spectators keep the custom of not applauding after the first act, a sign of how far the work is perceived as a rite rather than a show. The Bayreuth Festival continues to stage it almost every summer.