Parsifal, Royal Opera House
Musically magnificent and visually brutal, this Parsifal finds darkness everywhere but struggles to leave room for Wagner’s promise of redemption
10/2/2026
★★★★☆
Wagner regarded Parsifal as something more than an ordinary opera, calling it a ‘stage consecration festival play’. Premiered at Bayreuth in 1882, it was initially protected so fiercely that staged performances outside Bayreuth were effectively forbidden. Evgeny Titov’s new Royal Opera production could hardly feel further from a sacred ritual. His world is cold, violent and deeply suspicious of the beliefs on which Wagner built the work.
Étienne Pluss replaces forests and Grail temples with an oppressive underground complex of enormous concrete blocks. CCTV cameras, screens, exposed cables and clinical spaces suggest a community that has turned faith into surveillance and control. Esther Bialas’s costumes continue the dystopian mood, with Grail Knights dressed more like members of an isolated cult than guardians of something holy.
It is consistently bleak and sometimes difficult to understand. Titov provides striking images without always explaining how they fit together. The Flowermaidens become strange metallic, almost robotic seductresses, while Klingsor operates from a bunker filled with screens and collected objects. Kundry’s encounters with Parsifal include some deliberately uncomfortable imagery. There is plenty to think about, but the production sometimes appears determined to shock when clearer storytelling would have been more effective.
D.M. Wood’s superb lighting gives this grey world much of its visual power. Religious-looking tableaux briefly emerge from the darkness, and the image of Kundry dressed in white and carried above the stage is one of the evening’s magic moments. The final scene is even more startling, replacing conventional spiritual release with something considerably more violent. It is unforgettable, although whether it represents redemption is another question.
Musically, however, the evening is exceptional. Jakub Hrůša draws an extraordinary performance from the Royal Opera orchestra. Wagner’s vast score develops patiently, moving from delicate woodwind passages to overwhelming brass and strings without losing its shape. The chorus is similarly impressive, bringing enormous weight to the Grail rituals.
Christian Gerhaher provides the most gripping individual performance as Amfortas. Physically broken and almost frightening in his suffering, he makes every phrase feel painfully personal. Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s Parsifal grows convincingly from bewildered outsider to commanding figure, his bright, secure tenor gaining authority as the evening progresses. Ekaterina Gubanova is a powerful and unpredictable Kundry, while Brindley Sherratt brings experience, gravity and strong storytelling to the enormous role of Gurnemanz. Mark Stone makes Klingsor suitably threatening without reducing him to a simple villain.
The production is unquestionably competent and visually distinctive, even if dystopian opera is hardly an original concept. Its complexity sometimes works against narrative clarity, and its relentless darkness removes an important contrast from Wagner’s journey towards compassion.
Yet the musical standards are so high that the evening ultimately transcends some of the staging’s limitations. Gerhaher’s tortured Amfortas, Hrůša’s magnificent orchestra and several haunting stage pictures linger long afterwards. A challenging, sometimes frustrating Parsifal, but musically a remarkable one.
Image credit: Marc Brenner
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