Parsifal at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

I am a late convertor to Wagner, and not a fully committed one at that, and it was more a sense of exploration that drew me to Parsifal at Glyndebourne, having seen it just once before in 2016.

I was keen enough to fork out £185 for Blue Upper Circle B6. I had gone for cheap seats (£95) last year and while that sort of worked I fancied something better this year.

We were a small familial party (parents and elder son) which made the logistics of the day simpler, e.g. we could all travel down by train and we did not need to try to impress guests with fancy food. A picnic of sorts in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent worked well, though the recently acquired bottle of champagne had not yet settled and opened with gusto.

Parsifal is a long opera and were were seated ready for the performance at 3pm with it due to finish at 9pm (with intervals).

It was stunning. There were several main characters and they all sang beautifully, and acted well to. The music was sumptuous and was played superbly, it was music to wallow in. The staging was interesting and active with things happening away from the main action. The only problem was the story that made almost no sense, despite the copious sur-titles.

Luckily the lack of story had no impact on my enjoyment, much is it does not with other foreign language music that I like (and also Yes songs that, despite being in English, often make no sense either). The music and singing carried the day gorgeously.