Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Parsifal was instantly acclaimed as one of the great Wagnerian stagings of our time. It now returns to London for the final time after equally triumphant performances in San Francisco, Chicago, Baden-Baden and Barcelona. Mark Wigglesworth, praised for the ?consummate authority' (Evening Standard) and ?beautifully detailed and expansive conducting' (The Guardian) that he brought to ENO's Katya Kabanova in 2010, having previously conducted both Tristan and Isolde (for WNO) and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (for the Royal Opera), returns to conduct.

A world-class cast is led by Stuart Skelton (star of ENO's South Bank Show Award-winning Peter Grimes) as the ?innocent fool' who revitalises the Grail Knights' moribund, moralistic world through the power of human compassion. Ir?ne Theorin, one of Europe's finest Wagnerians (Isolde at Bayreuth in 2008 and a new star at the Metropolitan Opera, New York) is the conflicted Kundry. Olivier Award-winning bass Sir John Tomlinson returns to ENO as Gurnemanz, the trusty chronicler of the Grail's troubled history, while Iain Paterson - who recently took the title role in ENO's new Don Giovanni - is the fallen priest-king Amfortas.

News: Published on Tuesday 10 January 2011 at 00:59