Parsifal

The film brings Wagner’s opera Parsifal to the screen. But the staging is not the usual one. The director builds the opera as an interpretation. References to the history of Germany come into it. Wagner’s own life is inside the account too. So are German literature and philosophy. The set is built on top of a mask. The mask is Wagner’s death mask. The performers move about on it. Two actors share the role of Parsifal. One is a young man and the other a young woman. A single voice does the singing. Kundry stands at the centre of the film. The account can also be read as the story of her redemption. Armin Jordan and Robert Lloyd appear in the two hundred and fifty five minute film. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s French, German and British coproduction was finished in 1982.