Big cheers for the singers, mixed reactions for the director: The new “Parsifal” caused enthusiasm among the audience at the opening of the Bayreuth Festival. This was primarily for the music – and two stand-ins.
Andreas Schager took over the title role just two weeks before the premiere of Joseph Calleja, who was unable to perform due to a stubborn infection in his throat.
But opera star Elīna Garanča was even more celebrated than the title hero in her Bayreuth debut for a brilliant performance of Kundry. She too had taken on the role at very short notice because the Russian singer Ekaterina Semenchuk had canceled her participation in the festival “for private reasons”.
Standing ovation for Garanča
Garanča received even more applause for her varied, expressive, powerful and soulful performance than the Bayreuth crowd favorite Georg Zeppenfeld as an excellent Gurnemanz. Some spectators even stood up out of enthusiasm for them.
Pablo Heras-Casado was also largely unanimously celebrated for his relatively quick conducting – unlike Jay Scheib’s directing team.
The American had – an absolute novelty on the Green Hill – Richard Wagner’s Grail Knights opera in an augmented reality version on stage, which only a fraction of the audience got to see in full.
Stage action with virtual elements
Only 330 of the approximately 2,000 spectators were able to see the virtual elements that were supposed to complement the events on stage with special glasses costing around 1,000 dollars because the festival had not purchased more of them for cost reasons.
Anyone who wore such glasses could, for example, see a shot swan in the first act, at Parsifal’s first appearance, virtual flowers grew in Klingsor’s garden in the second act and at the end of the same the walls of the Festspielhaus collapsed.
For Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens), the opening of the Richard Wagner Festival was “a beautiful Bayreuth evening”. Regarding the new production of “Parsifal” she said on Tuesday evening: “It’s always exciting when Bayreuth opens. I think it’s good that new formats, new attempts are made. Whether it always works is another question.”
In his own words, Roth only wore the AR glasses at the beginning of the performance. “I got more into the production without the glasses,” she said.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also had glasses, but “hardly ever wore them. To be honest, I thought it was better without them,” he said. Söder praised the “top quality” of the production. He particularly likes “Parsifal” “because it ends well”.
