Parsifal at Hungarian State Opera, Opera House

Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel – that is, “a Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage”. Wagner himself invented this label for his final opera, Parsifal, a work which is indeed a theatrical depiction of reverent celebration and the sacred. Its hero, Parsifal, is the holy fool whose pure and naive faith enables him to redeem those suffering from afflictions of the body and of the soul. It also gains him admittance into the ranks of the guardians of the Grail, the sacred cup into which Christ's blood was spilled.
Sin, anguish, reincarnation, sacrifice, rebirth: this story of the labyrinth of error and the wondrous power of love and forgiveness elevates the idea of Easter into opera, even while dealing with the more general themes of good and evil magic, the struggle between darkness and light and the hope for redemption.