THE Sacred Festival Drama Parsifal was
Wagner's last work. In it, he again treats of the legendary relic of the Eucharist, the Holy Grail (the cup in which the Saviour's blood was received at the Crucifixion), which he had brought into his earlier opera Lohengrin.
In Parsifal the guardian of the Holy Grail has sinned, and sustained a wound from the Sacred Spear which will not heal. He and his Knights are in distress. Blessing comes to them once more through Parsifal, an innocent youth, the ' Pure Fool' who resists temptation.
The excerpts, Klingsor's Magic Garden and the Flower-Maiden's Scene, really form one continuous scene. Klingsor is an evil magician who, angry at his exclusion from the sacred knighthood, has created an enchanted castle and garden. Here, with the help of Kundry, a beautiful woman, and her attendant Flower-Maidens, he tempts the Knights. Parsifal is led there, but is proof against the enchantments and wiles of Klingsor and Kundry and her Maidens.