TheatreHD Opera Club in GUM Cinema. Parsifal. Special screening with Natalia Surnina

A story about destiny, a higher mission, service, and renouncing happiness for the sake of a great goal — based on knightly legends and the idea of the Holy Grail — this is Richard Wagner's final work, and so important that the composer imposed the strictest restrictions on its production. In particular, it was not to be performed outside its homeland — the Bayreuth Festival.

The Bayreuth sensation of 1882 became the Vienna sensation of 2021, having undergone significant plot metamorphoses. Kirill Serebrennikov brought "Parsifal" down from the heavens to the earth. Monsalvat became a prison (with kings and knights as prisoners), Klingsor's castle became the editorial office of a glossy magazine, and the sorceress Kundry became a journalist in a relationship with the publisher and political schemer Klingsor. The most complex transformation was undergone by Parsifal himself, who acquired two personas — adult (singing) and young. The plot is a tapestry woven from flashbacks broadcast on three enormous screens suspended above the stage. 

The production features a truly stellar vocal cast: Jonas Kaufmann (Parsifal), Elīna Garanča (Kundry), Ludovic Tézier (Amfortas), Georg Zeppenfeld (Gurnemanz), and Wolfgang Koch (Klingsor). On the podium of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra stands Maestro Philippe Jordan.