Cain and Abel with a Happy Ending: Glyndebourne’s first ‘Parsifal’ is musically outstanding but dramatically reduced, finds Tash Siddiqui

‘Sieh’, es lacht die Aue!’ – look, the meadow is smiling! – says Parsifal to Kundry at the end of the Good Friday Scene, but it could just as well be said of Glyndebourne’s splendid pastures in the Sussex Downs on the occasion of the festival’s first ever staging of Parsifal. ‘What took you so long?’ mutters this critic under her breath, no doubt become blasée by the improbable flourishing of country-house opera and especially country-house Wagner.