Mondparsifal alpha 1-8 at the Vienna Festwochen

After the much-dis­cussed can­cel­la­tion of his direct­ing engage­ment at the Bayreuth Fes­ti­val, the artist Jonathan Meese will bring the con­flict with Par­si­fal to a new dimen­sion. No post-cre­ative act can be expect­ed at the pre­miere of MOONPARSIFAL ALPHA 1–8 (ARCHMATRIARCH OF ESPIONARCHY), but rather, an encounter of the visu­al artist Meese with the com­pos­er Bern­hard Lang. With their new Par­si­fal project, the two will trans­port Wagner’s mythos into a rev­o­lu­tion­ary moment in a far-flung future. For this con­tem­po­rary rein­ter­pre­ta­tion and appre­ci­a­tion of Wagner’s noto­ri­ous final opera, the his­to­ry of the mas­ter­piece serves as an artis­tic launch-pad upon which the clas­sic work is cre­ative­ly stripped down and re-engi­neered so it can blast off in a new form. Par­si­fal and Wag­n­er are the oper­at­ic rock­et fuel that let this con­tem­po­rary pro­duc­tion zoom between past and future. Jonathan Meese, whose indi­vid­ual mytho­log­i­cal art world is close­ly linked to Wag­n­er, is respon­si­ble for the direc­tion, as well as for the stage and cos­tume design. Bern­hard Lang close­ly fol­lows the libret­to and the struc­ture of Wagner’s opera, cre­at­ing from them a com­plete­ly new uni­verse of sound. This isn’t music the­atre for archae­ol­o­gists, but a par­ty for the futur­ol­o­gists among us!

“Slice me Nice! The myth­i­cal fig­ure world of Wag­n­er (Par­si­fal, Kundry, and Kling­sor) meets a future moon-base inhab­it­ed by Richard Wag­n­er, as well as by Fan­cy, Mar­lon Bran­do, Zardoz, Wick­er­man, and Bar­barel­la. An elec­tri­fied Eagle Trans­porter hov­ers over the pic­ture; there’s a giant straw doll for Thanks­giv­ing; the Fel­low­ship of the Grail is still tire­less­ly await­ing its dis­cov­ery. But, in the mean­time, some­thing has fun­da­men­tal­ly changed… “(Jonathan Meese)