PARAKINO - 2013 - PARSIFAL

In 1982, the centennial anniversary Wagner’s Parsifal premiere, Syberberg filmed the staging of the final opera written by the German composer.

This is not a film and an opera neither. A stage for the action is Wagner’s head – there connect personal and cultural history and create new iconographic music Universe.

The film is whole filmed in atelier and presents many baselines to Caspar David Friedrich, Goya, Dürer, Titian, Caravaggio and Bramante. The main ‘prop’ in Syberberg’s version is Wagner’s gargantuan death mask, which usually appears in the background as a projection for various operatic scenes.

The young Parsifal, wishing to restore the knights of Monsalvat Knight’s Order and their leader Amfortas, caretaker of the Holy Grail, must reclaim the Holy Spear. His mission is threatened by seductive women-flowers that attempt to ensnare Kundry’s men and the ‘fallen castrated angel’, Klingsor. The main character isn’t Persifal but played by Edit Clever Kundry – a jilt, penitent and mother.

In this cinematic ‘adaptation’ of Parsifal, the director references his prior works, maintains the classic opera seria structure, while experimenting with the characters and aesthetics of Parsifal. The hero, the order’s great hope, appears only once as a man, once as a woman, and documentary images show the setting of Monsalvat in the form of post-war ruins.

Documentary film. 1982

35 mm, colour, 255 min.

Director: Hans Jürgen Syberberg

Screenplay: Hans Jürgen Syberberg, based on libretto by Richard Wagner

Production: TMS Film GmbH München, Bayerischer Rundfunk München, Gaumont Neuilly

Producer: Harry Nap, Annie Nap-Oléon

Cinematography: Igor Luther.

Editing: Jutta Brandstaedter, Marianne Fehrenberg

Music: Richard Wagner, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (conductor – Armin Jordan)

Cast: Armin Jordan (Amfortas/wokal Wolfgang Schöne), Martin Sperr (Titurel/wokal Hans Tschammer), Robert Lloyd (Gurnemanz), Michael Kutter (Parsifal I/wokal Rainer Goldberg), Karin Krick (Parsifal II/wokal Rainer Goldberg), Edith Clever (Kundry/wokal Yvonne Ninton)