Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Parsifal, by Richard Wagner

May 17–22, 2022
Rue Ravenstein 23, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium

Richard Wagner once joked (Wagner joked?) that having created the invisible orchestra, in a covered “mystic pit,” he wished he could follow up with an invisible stage. Given the ever-escalating tsunami of scenic overload his oeuvre has suffered over the past half century, chances are he would cherish concert performances of his disquieting “Bühnenweihfestspiel”Parsifal—above all others. (The neologism he coined to describe the work translates as “Festival play for consecrating the stage.”) Alain Altinoglu conducts. Julian Hubbard sings the holy fool Parsifal. He meets his destiny in the figure of “Hell’s rose” Kundry, here the spellbinding Elena Pankratova. —Matthew Gurewitsch