Parsifal Converts to Buddhism: Paul du Quenoy reviews a very Japanese production of Wagner’s last opera

Review of Parsifal, directed Kupfer, conducted Taijiro, Tokyo, 2014.

March 2015, Volume 9, Number 1, 60–61.

Japan’s New National Theatre opened its seventeenth season by completing its presentation of Wagner’s mature oeuvre with this original new production of his last opera, Parsifal. The honour of staging this milestone fell to the veteran German director Harry Kupfer. His third exploration of the work could be expected to owe something – perhaps even much – to his first two attempts, but in fact the influence is rather limited. All that seems to have been taken from the early 1990s Berlin Staastoper production is a giant swivelling crane that hovers close enough to the stage to move people and objects on and off the set.