Augmented Reality Takes Center Stage in Bayreuth’s Parsifal

By Oxana Arkaeva

Performance on August 14th, 2024

Production picture by © Enrico Nawrath

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The performance of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal on August 14, 2024, at the Bayreuth Festival, directed by Jay Scheib, was a revival from 2023 and offered a fascinating blend of traditional opera theater and modern augmented reality. The use of AR glasses, available only to a portion of the audience, formed a central artistic element of this production. 

Upon donning the AR headset, viewers were instantly transported into a virtual world populated by mythical creatures and emblematic imagery. This included a variety of symbols and phantasmagorias that played crucial roles in the text or action on stage, ranging from flying arrows and oversized planets to ghostly moonlit landscapes with burning bushes, severed body parts, injured animals, a torn-out, but still beating heart, streams of blood, to an oversized skull mimicking the singing on stage, culminating in an Egyptian eye symbolizing eternity. 

Though the virtual world’s encounter became increasingly perceived as overwhelming and distracting throughout the evening, there were touching moments that allowed a poetic expansion of Wagner’s total artwork. For instance, when a seemingly dead white swan struck by an arrow suddenly lifted its head and looked directly into one’s eyes or when a virtual goddess sat beside you. Or at the end when a white dove, encircled by a glowing golden halo, illuminated the conclusion of the performance.

The stage design by Mimi Lien was both simple and colorful and aesthetically pleasing. Supported by Rainer Casper’sartful lighting, she created a unique visual backdrop for the singing, though not always achieving the desired balance between stage action and virtual reality. The costumes, designed by Meentje Nielsen, were strikingly modern, sometimes simple, sometimes colourful, and featured unusual elements like patchwork pants and soft rubber jackets.

The performance was conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, who achieved a harmonious balance between the orchestra, singers, and stage action. His conducting stood out with a clear, transparent sound and chamber music-like delicacy, although it became somewhat sluggish with rather extended tempi by the end of the evening.

The cast was excellently chosen without exception and demonstrated extraordinary stamina, dramatic power, and outstanding singing. Derek Welton as Amfortas, Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz, Andreas Schager as Parsifal, and Ekaterina Gubanova as Kundry built an impressive singers’ quartet and were devotedly hailed by the audience at the end of the evening. The Bayreuth Festival Chorus (excellently prepared by Eberhard Friedrich) surpassed itself, delivering a full, homogeneous sound, dynamically balanced and all-encompassing.  

Overall, Jay Scheib’s Parsifal is a remarkable production that, true to the inscription on Parsifal’s T-shirt—”Remember Me”—will be long remembered and discussed. The production raises important questions about the balance between traditional theater and the use of modern technology, its significance for future programming, attracting new audiences as well as rethinking the festival’s artistic vision for the years to come.

Bayreuth Festival 2025 will open on July 24th, 2025 with Open Air concert in front of the opera house and free of charge. More about the festivals program in 2025 see here