Editing Parsifal (section)

==Performance history==
===Premiere===
On 12 November 1880, Wagner conducted a private performance of the prelude for his patron [[Ludwig II of Bavaria]] at the Court Theatre in Munich.{{sfnp|Gregor-Dellin|1983|p=485}} The premiere of the entire work was given in the [[Bayreuth Festspielhaus]] on 26 July 1882 conducted by the Jewish-German conductor [[Hermann Levi]]. Stage designs were by [[Max Brückner (artist)|Max Brückner]] and [[Paul von Joukowsky]], who took their lead from Wagner himself. The Grail hall was based on the interior of [[Siena Cathedral]] which Wagner had visited in 1880, while Klingsor's magic garden was modelled on those at the Palazzo Rufolo in [[Ravello]].{{sfnp|Beckett|1981|pp=90 f.}} In July and August 1882 sixteen performances of the work were given in [[Bayreuth]] conducted by Levi and [[Franz Fischer (musician)|Franz Fischer]]. The production boasted an orchestra of 107, a chorus of 135 and 23 soloists (with the main parts being double cast).{{sfnp|Carnegy|2006|pp=107–118}} At the last of these performances, Wagner took the baton from Levi and conducted the final scene of act 3 from the orchestral interlude to the end.{{sfnp|Spencer|2000|p=270}}

At the first performances of ''Parsifal'', problems with the moving scenery (the {{lang|de|Wandeldekoration}}<ref>Heinz-Hermann Meyer. [http://filmlexikon.uni-kiel.de/index.php?action=lexikon&tag=det&id=4255 "Wandeldekoration"], ''Lexikon der Filmbegriffe'', {{ISSN|1610-420X}} Kiel, Germany, 2012, citing the dissertation by [[Pascal Lecocq]].</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=La Wandeldekoration|journal=Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre|url=https://sht.asso.fr/revue/revue-histoire-theatre-numero-156|number=156|pages=359–383|date=1987|issn=0035-2373|author=[[Pascal Lecocq]]|language=fr|archive-date=2023-06-01|access-date=2022-11-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601022835/https://sht.asso.fr/revue/revue-histoire-theatre-numero-156/|url-status=dead}}</ref>) during the transition from scene 1 to scene 2 in act 1 meant that Wagner's existing orchestral interlude finished before Parsifal and Gurnemanz arrived at the hall of the Grail. [[Engelbert Humperdinck (composer)|Engelbert Humperdinck]], who was assisting the production, provided a few extra bars of music to cover this gap.{{sfnp|Spencer|2000|pp=268 ff.}} In subsequent years this problem was solved and Humperdinck's additions were not used.

===Ban outside Bayreuth===
{{more citations needed|section|date=July 2020}}
[[File:Wagner - Parsifal, act I - Gurnemanz conducting Parsifal to Monsalvat - The Victrola book of the opera.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Scene design for the controversial 1903 production at the [[Metropolitan Opera]]: Gurnemanz leads Parsifal to Monsalvat (act 1)]]

For the first twenty years of its existence, the only staged performances of ''Parsifal'' took place in the [[Bayreuth Festspielhaus]], the venue for which Wagner conceived the work (except eight private performances for Ludwig II at Munich in 1884 and 1885). Wagner had two reasons for wanting to keep ''Parsifal'' exclusively for the Bayreuth stage. First, he wanted to prevent it from degenerating into 'mere amusement' for an opera-going public. Only at Bayreuth could his last work be presented in the way envisaged by him—a tradition maintained by his wife, Cosima, long after his death. Second, he thought that the opera would provide an income for his family after his death if Bayreuth had the monopoly on its performance.

The Bayreuth authorities allowed unstaged performances to take place in various countries after Wagner's death (London in 1884, New York City in 1886, and Amsterdam in 1894) but they maintained an embargo on stage performances outside Bayreuth. On 24 December 1903, after receiving a court ruling that performances in the United States could not be prevented by Bayreuth, the New York [[Metropolitan Opera]] staged the complete opera, using many Bayreuth-trained singers. Cosima barred anyone involved in the New York production from working at Bayreuth in future performances. Unauthorized stage performances were also undertaken in Amsterdam in 1905, 1906 and 1908. There was a performance in Buenos Aires, in the Teatro Coliseo, on June 20, 1913, under [[Gino Marinuzzi]].

Bayreuth lifted its monopoly on ''Parsifal'' on 1 January 1914 in the [[Teatro Comunale di Bologna]] in Bologna with [[Giuseppe Borgatti]]. Some opera houses began their performances at midnight between 31 December 1913 and 1 January.{{sfnp|Beckett|1981|pp=93–95}} The first authorized performance was staged at the [[Gran Teatre del Liceu]] in Barcelona: it began at 10:30pm Barcelona time, which was [[time zone|an hour behind Bayreuth]]. Such was the demand for ''Parsifal'' that it was presented in more than 50 European opera houses between 1 January and 1 August 1914.{{sfnp|Beckett|1981|p=94}}

===Applause===
At Bayreuth performances audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. This tradition is the result of a misunderstanding arising from Wagner's desire at the premiere to maintain the serious mood of the opera. After much applause following the first and second acts, Wagner spoke to the audience and said that the cast would take no [[curtain call]]s until the end of the performance. This confused the audience, who remained silent at the end of the opera until Wagner addressed them again, saying that he did not mean that they could not applaud. After the performance Wagner complained, "Now I don't know. Did the audience like it or not?"<ref name=autogenerated1>{{harvp|Gregor-Dellin|1983|p=506}}</ref> At subsequent performances some believed that Wagner had wanted no applause until the very end, and there was silence after the first two acts. Eventually it became a Bayreuth tradition that no applause would be heard after the first act, but this was certainly not Wagner's idea. In fact, during the first Bayreuth performances, Wagner himself cried "Bravo!" as the flowermaidens made their exit in the second act, only to be hissed by other members of the audience.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> At some theatres other than Bayreuth, applause and curtain calls are normal practice after every act. Program notes until 2013 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York asked the audience not to applaud after act 1.<ref>[https://www.wqxr.org/story/273134-pondering-mysteries-parsifal/ "Pondering the Mysteries of ''Parsifal''"] by Fred Plotkin, [[WQXR-FM|WQXR]], 2 March 2013.</ref>

===Post-war performances===
''Parsifal'' is one of the Wagner operas regularly presented at the [[Bayreuth Festival]] to this day. Among the more significant post-war productions was that directed in 1951 by [[Wieland Wagner]], the composer's grandson. At the first Bayreuth Festival after [[World War II]] he presented a radical move away from literal representation of the hall of the Grail or the flowermaiden's bower. Instead, lighting effects and the bare minimum of scenery were used to complement Wagner's music. This production was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Swiss stage designer [[Adolphe Appia]]. The reaction to this production was extreme: [[Ernest Newman]], Richard Wagner's biographer, described it as "not only the best ''Parsifal'' I have ever seen and heard, but one of the three or four most moving spiritual experiences of my life".{{sfnp|Spotts|1994|p=212}} Others were appalled that Wagner's stage directions were being flouted. The conductor of the 1951 production, [[Hans Knappertsbusch]], on being asked how he could conduct such a disgraceful travesty, declared that right up until the [[dress rehearsal]] he imagined that the stage decorations were still to come.{{sfnp|Carnegy|2006|pp=288–290}} Knappertsbusch was particularly upset by the omission of the dove that appears over Parsifal's head at the end of the opera, which he claimed inspired him to give better performances. To placate his conductor Wieland arranged to reinstate the dove, which descended on a string. What Knappertsbusch did not realise was that Wieland had made the length of the string long enough for the conductor to see the dove, but not for the audience.<ref>{{cite AV media notes |first=Andreas |last=Kluge |chapter=Parsifal 1951 |year=1992 |title=Wagner: Parsifal |publisher=Teldec |id=9031-76047-2}}</ref> Wieland continued to modify and refine his Bayreuth production of Parsifal until his death in 1966. [[Martha Mödl]] created a "complex, tortured Kundry in Wieland Wagner's revolutionary production of Parsifal during the festival's first postwar season", and would remain the company's exclusive Kundry for the remainder of the decade.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/martha-m%C3%B6dl-mn0001662359 |title=Martha Mödl|author=Erik Eriksson |website=[[AllMusic]] |access-date=24 February 2016}}</ref>{{sfnp|Shengold|2012}}