A NEW PARSIFAL FOR DANIELE GATTI IN DRESDEN

Richard Wagner’s masterpiece is staged at the Semperoper with direction by Floris Visser from March 22 to April 6

The last opera by Wagner after the last opera by Verdi. Daniele Gatti, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, returns to the podium of the Semperoper in the Saxon capital following Falstaff, with which he inaugurated the 2025/26 season last October, to conduct Parsifal. It has been thirteen years since his last interpretation of the opera, which Gatti first conducted for the opening of the Bayreuth Festival in 2008 and later at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 2013. The premiere of the new production of Parsifal at the Semperoper in Dresden, directed by Dutch stage director Floris Visser, is scheduled for March 22 at 4:00 PM, with performances running until April 6.

“It is a great privilege to return to conducting Parsifal thirteen years after the last time,” says Daniele Gatti, “but it is even more special to do so in a city like Dresden, deeply connected to the history of Richard Wagner, who served here as Hofkapellmeister. Reuniting with some musicians with whom I shared the experience of my first Parsifal in Bayreuth in 2008 makes this occasion even more meaningful and special.”

Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal – first performed in Bayreuth in 1882 – is a work about the quest for redemption, in which the hopes of an individual intertwine with those of an entire community awaiting its savior. The new Dresden production features Eric Cutler in the role of Parsifal, Oleksandr Pushniak as Amfortas, Albert Dohmen as Titurel, Georg Zeppenfeld as Gurnemanz, Scott Hendricks as Klingsor, and Michèle Losier as Kundry. The sets are by Frank Philipp Schlößmann, costumes by Jon Morell, lighting design by Malcolm Rippeth, video by Will Duke, and choreography by Demi Wals.

After Parsifal, Daniele Gatti will embark on a European tour with the Staatskapelle Dresden, stopping in Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, Essen, Hamburg, Paris, Frankfurt, and Prague. The program will include Verdi’s Requiem Mass with soloists Eleonora Buratto, Elīna Garanča, Benjamin Bernheim, and Michele Pertusi. In April, Gatti will begin his tenure as the new Music Director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino – a position he previously held as Principal Conductor from 2022 to 2024 – where, over four evenings from June 18 to July 1, he will present the complete Beethoven Symphonies.

Info: https://www.semperoper.de/spielplan/stuecke/stid/parsifal/62480.html

TAGS: