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Parsifal
Sign in to saveParsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.
Key facts
- Opera.name
- Parsifal
- Opera.type
- Music drama
- Opera.composer
- Richard Wagner
- Opera.image
- Parsifal (1882 retuschiert).jpg
- Opera.image_upright
- 1.2
- Opera.caption
- Amalie Materna, Emil Scaria and Hermann Winkelmann in the first production of the at the Bayreuth Festival
- Opera.librettist
- Richard Wagner
- Opera.language
- German
- Opera.premiere_location
- Bayreuth Festspielhaus
via Wikipedia infobox
~47 min read
Encyclopedic overview
29 sectionsContents
- Composition
- Performance history
- Premiere
- Ban outside Bayreuth
- Applause
- Post-war performances
- Roles
- Summary
- Act 1
- Act 2
- Act 3
- Reactions
- Interpretation and influence
- Schopenhauer
- Nietzsche
- Racism debate
- Music
- Leitmotifs
- Chromaticism
- Notable excerpts
- Instrumentation
- Recordings
- Filmed versions
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Sources
- Further reading
- External links
Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.
Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1914; however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled that it was legal.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Parsifal” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.