I wrote in some depth about Bayreuth last year. This year I visited Bayreuth again attending the augmented reality opera production of Parsifal. In years past, Bayreuth might not have been known for innovation technology but under Katharine Wagner’s reign there have been some ground-breaking productions – not all successful – and this year the innovation is most interesting. Parsifal was produced by the American stage director and playwright Jay Scheib who is noted for his genre defined works of daring physicality and the integration of new technologies in live performance. He is a recipient of both a Guggenheim and Obie award for direction and is a professor of music and theatre arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. So, a very serious director and one not frightened to push the boundaries. And in Bayreuth he certainly did that, causing much internal friction through the difficult implementation of augmented reality in this production.

There is a huge amount of interest in the ability to stage a production through an extended digital platform. In the case of Parsifal, the introduction of immersive technology meant the last four rows of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus had the ability to not only watch the production but extend their enjoyment by the use of augmented reality glasses. These glasses although not easy to wear – impossible if you wear normal glasses – were the privilege of 300 of the 1900 opera goers. And what do the lucky twenty percent get for this privilege? It is a second and different staging vision of the opera, super imposed on the eye screens and constantly producing new visual dynamics. Watching the eye screen means that the action on stage cannot be viewed fully, so the opera goers’ vision is of bare trees, snakes, gulls, guns, grenades, severed limbs, many plastic bags, fire, asteroids, and a world attentive fox.

In the meantime, the real production carries on, on the main stage, and the stage itself doesn’t produce anything that could be described as hugely controversial. The sci-fi landscape in Act I turns into the enchanted garden in Act II which then in Act III becomes a lonely desert encampment mainly overtaken by a machine, half caterpillar, and half tank.

The dichotomy for the audience is which bit of the production do they want to watch – the one on stage or the one through the augmented reality technology glasses or try a combination of both. It is that dichotomy which makes the experiment worthwhile and interesting but ultimately unworkable in its current form. Too much is lost with Wagner’s opera and in the end the glasses and the AR became a distraction.

However, musically, this performance was as bright as a button. The conductor Pablo Heras-Casado was a solid maestro who really enabled the music to shine through in a wonderful Act II. Perhaps there wasn’t sufficient dynamic interpretation of the score at the end of Act III with the transition from the Good Friday spell to the Grails disrupted journey.

However, he had a wonderful cast of singers. The opening night Kundry of Elīna Garanča had been replaced by the wonderful Ekaterina Gubanova. Her confident mezzo-soprano was as strong as it was articulate and her change from rampant seductress and Klingsor-chic to a penitent Christian was complete as she washes the feet of Parsifal in the poignant moment towards the end of Act III. Her interaction with the Parsifal of Andreas Schager was beautifully intense. The renowned heldentenor was on sparkling form even though he seemed at times to hold back his huge vocal abilities – perhaps his Siegfried the night before in The Ring had been a step too far, even for him. Georg Zeppenfeld was a satisfying and vocally forceful Gurnemanz and Jordan Shanahan was a cool and complex wizard Klingsor. The rest of the cast including the chorus were led with great sound and grace by the conductor.

While Wagner started this opera in the 1850’s he did not finish it until the late 1870’s and Parsifal turned out to be his last opera. The innovation of this opera didn’t all work but was a worthwhile start on that innovation journey to the future.

David Buchler