It was Richard Wagner's last - and greatest - opera. First performance took place at Bayreuth Theater in 1882 (one year before the composer's death) under the musical direction of Hermann Levi, a talented German Jewish conductor and a close friend of Wagner's. Here is an excerpt from Act 1, including the beautiful Interlude. James Levine conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. (Mr. Levine has also conducted the centennial production of this work at Bayreuth.) Parsifal: Siegfried Jerusalem. Gurnemanz: Kurt Moll. (Incidentally, note the intriguing line sung by Gurnemanz: "You see, my son, time here becomes space"! Did Wagner actually foresee Einstein's Theory of Relativity?)
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