Quiz Quest – Parsifal Out West

IN WHAT YEAR WAS MUSIC FROM PARSIFAL FIRST HEARD IN SAN FRANCISCO?

A) 1885
B) 1903
C) 1914

• Answer

  A) 1885
  
  In April 1885, the “Good Friday spell” became the first music from Parsifal to be performed in San Francisco. The concert, commemorating Good Friday, was headlined by Amalie Materna, the Viennese soprano who was Wagner’s first Kundry in Parsifal just three years earlier.

Who filed an injunction against the Met’s production of Parsifal in 1903?

A) Pope Leo XIII
B) Johannes Brahms
C) President Theodore Roosevelt
D) Wagner’s widow, Cosima Wagner

• Answer

  D) Wagner’s widow, Cosima Wagner

  Cosima Wagner fiercely protected Parsifal’s exclusivity to Bayreuth and filed legal action to try to stop the Met’s first fully staged performance outside Germany in 1903. She was unsuccessful as U.S. copyright law at the time did not recognize European exclusivity, but she enacted her vengeance on German tenor Alois Burgstaller who sang Parsifal in the Met’s production by banning him for life from Bayreuth.

What company produced the first fully staged production of Parsifal seen in San Francisco?

A) San Francisco Opera

B) San Francisco Symphony

C) The Metropolitan Opera

D) Lyric Opera of Chicago

• Answer

  C) The Metropolitan Opera

  The Metropolitan Opera mounted the first fully staged performance of Parsifal outside of Bayreuth on December 24, 1903. A national tour followed, bringing the work to San Francisco’s Grand Opera House in April 1905.

Wolfram von Eschenbach penned the poem that inspired Parsifal, but he is also a character in what other opera?

A) Tannhäuser

B) Lohengrin

C) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

• Answer

  A) Tannhäuser

  In Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Wolfram von Eschenbach appears as a minstrel. The real Wolfram was a 13th-century German poet who wrote the epic poem Parzifal, which inspired Wagner’s final opera.

What is the most performed excerpt in Parsifal’s history?

A) Act I - Amfortas’ lament
B) Act II - Flowermaiden scene
C) Act III - Good Friday Spell

• Answer

  C) Good Friday Spell
  
  The serene and luminous “Good Friday Spell” has been the most frequently performed excerpt from Parsifal since the late 19th century, often presented in concerts long before full productions were staged outside Bayreuth. That was true in San Francisco, where it became the first music from Parsifal heard here in 1885. The popularity of the “Good Friday Spell” is fitting: Wagner was inspired to write Parsifal after waking one sunny Good Friday and recalling the connection between the day and the epic poem of Parzifal he had read many years earlier.

Which singing group augmented the SF Opera Chorus for the 1988 Parsifal production?

A) SF Symphony Chorus
B) SF Gay Men’s Chorus
C) SF Choral Society
D) All of the above

• Answer

  B) SF Gay Men’s Chorus
  
  For the 1988 production of Parsifal, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus joined the Company’s chorus, helping to deliver Wagner’s demanding choral passages with dramatic power and precision. This collaboration was a significant moment that recognized the Gay Men’s Chorus' stature during the height of the AIDS crisis. It was considered a landmark invitation, an act of social integration, and a recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in the face of immense tragedy.