Parsifal
Bayreuth Festival, until 28 August
In the days leading up to this year’s Bayreuth Festival, Bavaria was rocked by a spate of violent attacks. Security measures ran high for the premiere of a new Parsifal rumoured to be awash in Islamic symbolism. Such reports proved true, with the production set in a contemporary Middle Eastern country under threat, possibly from Isis. Far from being lauded as avant, however, the staging by Uwe Eric Laufenberg was instantly dubbed ‘Provinztheater‘, or ‘provincial theater’, the worst insult that the well-heeled festival audience could come up with. I disagree. Calling Laufenberg’s dull and confused staging ‘Provinztheater’, is an insult to the country’s provincial theatres, where I’ve seen many excellent things over the years (including a superb Parsifal in the quaint Hanseatic city of Lübeck, known as the birthplace of marzipan).
Laufenberg, who heads the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, was an eleventh-hour replacement for the controversial artist Jonathan Meese, ditched by the festival and its director, Katharina Wagner (the composer’s great granddaughter) last summer, officially over budgetary concerns.
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