Parsifal's Way, by Tankred Dorst

(Parzivals Weg)

with Ursula Ehler

Produced by Deutschlandradio Kultur, 2005
Director: Beate Andres
Speakers: Marc Hosemann, Edgar Selge, Detlef Jacobsen, Judith Engel, et al.
Music composed by Andreas Bick
Contrabass flute: Tilmann Dehnhard
First broadcast: 18 December 2005

Several works by the playwright Tankred Dorst have featured parable-like treatments of the King Arthur legend. In this radio play, Parsifal is a seeker who wishes to find God and paradise on earth. In vain, he roams about and becomes the laughing stock and terror of society. “I’ll smash everything, I’ll destroy the entire land. I’ll kill every living thing until He alone remains!” Not knowing what life and death mean, in a world that remains closed to him, Parsifal stumbles through “the small desert of deafness and the larger desert of blind acts“.