Parsifal is more than opera. It is a collective experience, an encounter with the mythical and an invitation to spiritual insight.

Kennedy & Selg are known for their immersive worlds that combine theatre, video installation and collective ritual. In Parsifal, they continue this tradition: a total theatre in which projections, music, voices and bodies merge and the boundary between real and virtual becomes blurred. The audience becomes not only spectators, but also participants in a ritual journey.

Wagner's opera itself is a spiritual quest. Parsifal embodies elements of both Jesus and Buddha, and ends up on an inner journey that raises questions about faith, compassion and the unity of humanity and the world. Whereas philosophers such as Schopenhauer took a sombre view of life, in Parsifal Wagner seeks a path that affirms life and enables liberation, not through external changes, but through inner transformation.

Kennedy and Selg return to the religious roots of theatre: rituals that create community and take the audience to an archaic, spiritual level. When, at the end, Wagner's music rises above words and illusions, the audience experiences what Wagner himself meant: theatre as a temple.

Read the full article by Tobias Staab here