When Omer Meir Wellber took over at Palermo’s Teatro Massimo it was inevitable that the Israeli conductor would come up against Wagner. In tackling classical music’s antisemite-in-chief head on, his declared aim was to become an “anti-conductor”, to “cleanse [Wagner’s] image” and to “rid his music of all the pathos that is often attributed to it.” 

For his production partner, Wellber chose Graham Vick, a director adept at getting to the heart of the matter and unafraid of rocking political, religious or societal boats. This 2020 staging of Parsifal is accordingly a searing inditement of the cruelty of organised religion and its way of attracting the fanatic. “Somehow, from Catholic vs. Protestant in Northern Ireland, to Shia vs. Sunni, Christianity vs. Islam and the continuing blight of antisemitism, we continue to hijack religion to assert our tribalism,” he wrote in his program note.

In relocating the action to a Middle Eastern combat zone, Vick occupies similar territory to Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s controversial 2016 staging for the Bayreuth Festival, especially with the Grail Knights ghoulishly forcing Amfortas to reopen the wound and pass around...