Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Parsifal

Despite its enigmatic details, Bayreuth's Parsifal reaches a cathartic climax. 

Instead of telling a story of spiritual enlightenment and ultimate redemption through faith, Pierre Audi's reading is bereft of mystery and magic.

After staged performances in Baden Baden, the Berlin Phil's Parsifal is presented in concert at the Philharmonie, with a couple of key cast changes. 

The 1957 production of Parsifal, with its traditional staging and dreamy imageries, was a perfect backdrop to showcase Wagner's celebration of stage play with music on Good Friday.

Dieter Dorn’s staging robbed Wagner’s final masterwork of magic and mystery while Simon Rattle set new speed records.

Claus Guth’s grandiose production of Parsifal made major headlines in Zurich in 2011. With its new cast of principals, this revival is no less a sensation.

The Met’s production of Wagner’s Parsifal is a harrowing affair, entrancing in its refusal to charm. 

As clearly visible on all photos, the Sydney Opera House has two “sails”, interconnected major sections. One of them houses concerts, the other operas. Opera performances, however, are not exclusively taking place in the Opera Theatre.

Magisterial playing and conducting underpin an outstanding, engrossing evening of Wagner at the Schiller Theater.

With its monumental sets designed by Anish Kapoor, Pierre Audi’s abstract Parsifal at Dutch National Opera is spectacular, led by the excellent Christopher Ventris, with Günther Groissböck shining in his role debut as Gurnemanz. 

An evening of heavy-hitting, late Romantic symphonic and operatic repertoire by Bruckner and Wagner that was rich in artistry, if a little overwhelming for some.

Deutsche Oper Berlin's revival of Parsifal features a brilliant musical performances to override the production's focus on the dark side of religion.

Uwe Eric Laufenberg sets his new staging of Wagner's final opera among the persecuted Christians of the contemporary Middle East – but avoids preaching.

It’s probably best not to think too hard about the philosophical messages behind Parsifal, but Nelsons and the CBSO provide an emphatic reminder of how transcendent Wagner's music can be.

Parsifal at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is both sublime and terrifying. Vincke's Parsifal was bold and heroic while Herlitzius sang with a silver, sinuous soprano. Stolzl's production gave us the fanaticism of religion rather than hope.

What is perhaps even more remarkable than the unabashed grandeur of the new Parsifal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is the degree to which its spectacle draws on the images and genres of 20th-century media technologies including popular music.

In program notes, Christoph Eschenbach, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, calls Parsifal “the culmination of Wagner’s work”. For his orchestra’s recent celebration of Wagner’s bicentennial at the Kennedy Center, Eschenbach programmed a concert performance of Act III of the composer’s final opera: the culmination of the culmination, one could say.

German director Christof Loy’s second production for the Royal Swedish opera was of Wagner’s Parsifal. The cast is rather on the luxurious side as well, sporting three of the greatest Wagner singers working today – two of them Swedish, no less!Loy’s Parsifal is a distinctly human drama.

Celebrating the Wagner centenary in 1913, the Hallé Orchestra gave a concert performance in Manchester of Acts II and III from Wagner’s epic final masterpiece Parsifal.

The Wagner bicentennial marches on, bringing grand sounds from practically every corner of the musical earth. What appear most frequently on concert programs are various extracts from the operas, such as the collection of preludes, overture, and vocal and orchestral excerpts offered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Daniele Gatti at Carnegie Hall.

Before the music in the Metropolitan Opera’s new Parsifal starts, a black but reflective curtain drapes the front of the stage. It is dim enough not quite to show the audience, but it picks out the chandeliers.

Why attend a concert performance of an opera? What is the point without the action and the spectacle collectively resulting in, hopefully, the awe-inspiring whole? In answer to this I should like to suggest that concert performances of opera are the perfect opportunity to really ‘get under the skin’ of a work, for two principal reasons.

Leipzig routinely honours its native son with performances of Parsifal scheduled on and around Good Friday, which tempts a state of ritualized enactment best confined to the opera itself. (Vienna maintains the same tradition and is a magnet for self-appointed enforcers of the Bayreuth applause customs and their confrontational silencing of the ‘transgressors’.

The ENO’s production of Parsifal, which opened last night, is a revival of their 1999 staging, directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. This is Wigglesworth's first Parsifal, and he's made a triumphant start. The fifteen minute prelude was like listening to a symphony all by itself, and I was grabbed from the very first note.

Das Niveau der Solisten steht der enttäuschenden Inszenierung in unüberbrückbarer Distanz gegenüber.

Forte d’une tenue et d’une distribution remarquables, portée par un souci conjugué du texte et du symbole, cette nouvelle mouture de Parsifal signée Richard Jones s’empare habilement des fulgurances et ambiguïtés de l'œuvre. 

In dieser Inszenierung funktioniert nicht alles, doch sie bietet reichlich Anregung zur Diskussion und einen Gurnemanz, der wohl jeden zum rechten (Wagner-)Glauben führt.

Precedida por una gran atención mediática, el templo wagneriano estrena producción de su obra más propia. Un propuesta en la que destacan las voces y que resulta superficial a pesar de sus ambiciones.

Una deslumbrante actuación orquestal a manos de Semyon Bychkov en una producción que no logra aprovechar las posibilidades de la obra de Wagner.

Wien an Ostern ist ohne das Bühnenweihfestspiel Richard Wagners nicht denkbar, und die langjährige Produktion kann auch in diesem Jahr begeistern.

Klaus Florian Vogt, l'un des grands ténors wagnériens actuels a interprété avec brio au Théâtre des Champs Elysées Parsifal et surtout Lohengrin. Il était magnifiquement soutenu par Andris Nelsons avec le City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, qui ont aussi illuminé Dvorak.

Mercredi 16 juillet à 20h, Alain Altinoglu dirigeait l'Orchestre National de France dans un programme intitulé « Autour de 1914 ». A l’opéra Berlioz de Montpellier, Wagner, Stephan, Schubert et Brahms étaient interprétés dans le cadre du festival de Radio France. Un programme d’une grande intensité donnant lieu à un moment de mémoire.