During the summer, my mother and I went to the Bayreuth Wagner festival, and there we watched the full Ring tetralogy as well as a production of Parsifal. This production in particular was quite special as it incorporated elements of augmented reality into the staging.
To be honest, the AR was very unnecessary as it didn’t add any particularly interesting elements thematically, the physical staging held up really well by itself, and the glasses themselves were quite uncomfortable to wear – especially because the opera is four hours long. This being said, it’s a really interesting innovation, and leaves a lot of doors open in the future of opera, so i’m glad i got to experience one of the first instances of this type of technology in the field.
Aside from the gimmick, the show was really good, and had a very impressive cast. My personal favourite was Jordan Shanahan in the role of Klingsor, who delivered an extremely entertaining performance while also being the strongest vocally in my opinion.
CAST
https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/programm/auffuehrungen/parsifal
What the critics said
https://myscena.org/gianmarco-segato/review-alienating-ar-in-bayreuth-festivals-parsifal
Leave a Reply