Booking Confirmation by email
Ticket pick-up at the evening box office
Run time: 5hrs 15min, 2 intermissions
Sung in GERMAN
Subtitles in English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese
Parsifal, Wagner’s final masterpiece, is traditionally performed around Easter at the Vienna State Opera. This season star tenor Jonas Kaufmann is the title hero, who must discover who he is before he can save the hallowed Brotherhood of the Holy Grail. Alongside the tenor, the all-star cast features Elīna Garanča as the otherworldly Kundry, Georg Zeppenfeld as the wise Gurnemanz , Ludovic Tézier as the anguished Amfortas, and Wolfgang Koch as the evil magician Klingsor. Philippe Jordan takes the podium to lead one of opera’s most transcendental scores.
Richard Wagner (1813–83) was one of the most significant figures in the history of opera. His works transformed the course of Western music, either by extension of his discoveries or reaction against them.
Wagner controlled all aspects of his theatrical works, writing both the music and the librettos of his operas, giving instructions for scenic design, staging, and action, and conducted most of their premieres. His aesthetic ideal was what he called a Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”), meaning a work in which all art forms are united in the service of drama.
For the libretto Wagner took inspiration from Parzival, a German epic poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1160/80 – c. 1220).