Solveig Olsen: Hans Jurgen Syberberg and His Film of Wagner's "Parsifal,"

Abstract

The meaning of Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel does not have to be explained to those who are familiar with Wagner's Parsifal. But what is a Kinoweihfestfilm? A festival film for the consecration of a screen? This is what Max Reinhardt called his silent film Parzifal of 1921. Considering the quasi-sacred status of Wagner's Parsifal, the very idea of producing this work in the medium of film, a bastion of popular entertainment which can be shown anywhere at any time, might seem like a blasphemous challenge to the composer. Even if one subscribes to Martin van Amerongen's belief that “if Wagner had lived a century later, his home would not have been Bayreuth but Beverly Hills,”1Parsifal would probably have been Wagner's last choice for a film. Ironically, however, Parsifal is the first of Wagner's operas to have been adapted for film. Edwin S. Porter produced a twenty-five-minute silent film version which was screened in New York City in 1904, a year after the American premiere of Parsifal at the Met. The first sound film was the Spanish Parsifal directed by Daniel Mangrané and Carlos Serrano de Osma in 1951. According to Ken Wlaschin's catalog, Hans Jürgen Syberberg's Parsifal is the latest cinematic production of Wagner's opera.2 It was first screened at the Cannes film festival in 1982, the centennial of the opera's world premiere at Bayreuth. The cinematic production of opera generally involves musical changes, a notorious example of which is Franco Zeffirelli's Otello (1986). In Syberberg's film, Wagner's music and libretto remain intact; yet it is considered one of the most controversial opera-films. Its strong directorial voice often challenges Wagner's ideology and operatic aesthetics to the extent that Jean-Jacques Nattiez described the film as “a Parsifal by Syberberg about Wagner.”3