Parsifal, the last opera written by the great German composer, was premièred in Bayreuth in 1882. In the fifty years of his artistic life Wagner did not only mature and outline more and more clearly the aesthetic ideals that formed the intellectual substratum of his composing activity but definitely upset the course of the history of music and of the music theatre. The wide range of his cultural interests, his operational daring, ability to blend elements of different origin, complete rejection of any form of operatic routine and grandiosity of onception make of each and every opera that he wrote a sort of artistic case in its own, where the experiences of previous works are salvaged or abandoned ccording to the expressive needs, which are never subordinate to contingent ecessities. Performing this complex work is no simple task, but the cast on stage at Teatro La Fenice in Venice did so with flying colours.