Résumé: Every new production of Parsifal in Bayreuth is a special event, as it was written specifically with the Bayreuth acoustic in mind. In summer 2016, director Uwe Eric Laufenberg presented his reading of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel, transposing it to a region bordering Iraq, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan – in other words, to the very heart of today’s religious wars. The cast boasted Klaus Florian Vogt as a silvery yet clarion-toned Parsifal, the fabulous Elena Pankratova as Kundry, the “Rose from Hell”,...