Parsifal: Glyndebourne's 'startling' take on Wagner's final opera

Robin Ticciati and the London Philharmonic Orchestra are back with an "enthralling 'Parsifal' that is well paced, beautifully balanced and with a palpable feel for Wagner's many-layered, floating clouds of sound", said Richard Fairman in the Financial Times.

It may have taken 90 years, but Glyndebourne has finally staged its first "Parsifal". The opera house's founder, John Christie, hoped to open with Wagner's epic final opera in 1934, but his ambition turned out to be an "impossible dream", and he was never able to see it performed there in his lifetime.

Now, Jetske Mijnssen is making her UK debut with a new production that turns Wagner's "last and most enigmatically mystical opera into a protracted family deathbed drama", said Richard Morrison in The Times.

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In this staging, Amfortas (Audun Iversen) and Klingsor (Ryan Speedo Green) are estranged brothers at war, while Kundry (Kristina Stanek) becomes a "mournful family servant", and Parsifal is "less an 'innocent fool' with redemptive qualities than a sort of counsellor who brings about a family reconciliation". Reimagining Wagner as "Chekhov with an orchestra" may inject the production with more psychological credibility, but it's "no longer quite what the composer envisaged".

It does provide "some startling new takes" on Wagner's opera, said Nicholas Kenyon in The Telegraph, and on the opening night there were "cheers for the music, but scattered grumbles at the drama". Still, it's a "gripping evening" that will no doubt spark debate about the "real meaning" of the composer's final work.

Speedo Green makes a "formidable, menacing" Amfortas, while Iversen is "affecting and well projected" as Klingsor, said Barry Millington in London's The Standard. And there are some "stunning stage tableaux" throughout, like the macabre funeral procession with its "sepulchral undertakers and snowfall".

John Relyea is a "velvet-toned tour de force" as Gurnemanz, and John Tomlinson is "as magnetic as ever" as Titurel, said Erica Jeal in The Guardian. The outstanding cast is supported by a "gleaming, flowing" performance from the London Philharmonic led by conductor Robin Ticciati. "Would Wagner have recognised this as his 'Parsifal'? Maybe not. But it's moving on its own terms, and it sounds wonderful."

Until 24 June, glyndebourne.com