Assault and battery

Certainly, Scheib’s production marks several significant firsts for the Bayreuth Festival and the world of opera. It is the inaugural staging by a distinguished institution that explores the interactive potentials of augmented reality’s parallel worlds. Although environmental themes are frequently addressed by directors, Scheib’s Parsifal uniquely critiques the greenwashing associated with lithium and cobalt mining in the battery industry. However, these innovations seem diminished when Scheib’s muddled ideas and uninspired theatrical execution ultimately fail to connect with Wagner’s narrative.

In this production, Scheib places Parsifal in a decimated, post-human landscape ravaged by the extraction of minerals crucial to our consumer-driven economy. The Grail Knights of this world are custodians of an order that venerates the metals essential for electrification, symbolised by a prominent metallic monument overshadowing their sacred domain. In the first act, Montsalvat resembles a cobalt mining site, Kundry’s balsam is represented by a mineral chunk, and the order performs their rituals by anointing Amfortas’ blood onto a blue, diamond-shaped cobalt oxide crystal—referred to as the Holy Grail in this context.

The relevance of the order’s obsession with mining and stage designer Mimi Lien’s desolate dystopia to the order’s moral decay remains ambiguous. Perhaps the knights, as advocates of green technology, overlooked the environmental damage inflicted by their energy sources as they shifted away from fossil fuels. Their resistance to technological progress amidst various ecological crises might reflect the corruption evident in the narrative. It is an unusual interpretation of Wagner’s plot.

Given how Scheib’s team presented this as an environmental Parsifal, it is perplexing how the central act and its crucial encounter between Kundry and Parsifal were handled so differently. Klingsor, portrayed as an androgynous figure in a Barbie pink suit and heels, maintains the spear in a vibrant, psychedelic club populated by blonde social media influencers (serving as stand-ins for the flower maidens). It’s unclear whether these contemporary hedonists are meant to symbolize our society’s overconsumption and materialism. Unfortunately, this bewildering setting proved to be an inadequate backdrop for Parsifal and Kundry’s profound existential revelation.

The programme booklet dedicates considerable space to poetry, literature, and philosophy that depict Kundry as a powerful, self-aware woman constrained by male prejudice. Similarly, it explores Parsifal’s lack of memories and its significance to his role as the plot’s “solutions guy.” However, the influence of these insights into feminist agency or the empowering role of memory on the characters’ development and their interactions at the heart of the drama (or in the surrounding acts) was barely discernible from Marlene Schleicher’s peculiar and aimless dramaturgy.

Environmental themes resurface in the final act, where the now dilapidated Montsalvat is situated in a wasteland tainted by a lithium-ion pool. In the absence of the AR imagery, much of Act II unfolds in a conventional manner. The weary hero returns with the holy spear, Kundry seeks redemption by washing his feet (though with the contaminated lithium water), and Gurnemanz crowns him as the new leader of the order.

The only notable twist in the act occurs towards the end when Parsifal unveils the grail and shatters it on the ground. He then leads the still-alive Kundry to the centre of the lithium pool. As the score’s ethereal chords fade into silence, Parsifal raises both his gaze and the spear towards the sky, symbolising that the remedy for the Grail order’s and humanity’s corruption lies in solar energy.

While there is much to critique about the directorial missteps—such as the inexplicable double of Kundry and her interaction with Gurnemanz—this production’s lack of intellectual depth might be better overshadowed by its “cool” new AR feature. Scheib, a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s theatre arts department, enlisted colleagues from the MIT Media Lab, including video and AR specialist Joshua Higgason, to design the projections for Bayreuth’s staging.

The technical effort invested in creating and calibrating the AR imagery was indeed impressive. Scheib and Higgason employed LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology to map the entire Festspielhaus auditorium and stage. This allowed each individual device to precisely align the projections for the small fraction of the Bayreuth audience equipped with the glasses. The team’s collaboration with a global, multidisciplinary group of visual designers produced the graphics integrated into the AR experience.

Derek Welton, in the role of Amfortas, showcased a powerful voice that poignantly conveyed the Grail King’s suffering, while Jordan Shanahan presented a menacing and villainous Klingsor. Both baritones made a strong impression during their brief appearances, despite some of the peculiar direction surrounding their characters, such as the unsettling video focus on Amfortas’ wound and Klingsor’s awkward gender depiction in Act II. Among the minor roles, Tobias Kehrer’s resonant Titurel, Jordan Newlin’s lyrical Knappe, and Evelin Novak’s rich portrayal of the first flower maiden stood out for their excellent singing.

Pablo Heras-Casado offered a luminous and transparent interpretation of Parsifal’s score, maintaining dramatic intensity and expressiveness throughout the performance. Although some of the climactic moments that highlight the work’s mystical grandeur were occasionally understated, Heras-Casado’s baton moved with fluidity, effectively capturing the ethereal Bayreuth acoustic so closely associated with the score.

Augmented reality holds exciting potential for creating uniquely interactive theatrical experiences. While challenges remain in implementing this emerging technology in many theatres, there is no inherent barrier to using personalized, superimposed imagery to reveal intriguing details about a narrative or to enhance a director’s stagecraft. However, as shown by Bayreuth’s uneven Parsifal, maintaining directorial responsibility and integrity is crucial, even when embracing innovation.

Photos: Enrico Nawrath