Parsifal

parse-fal, an opera by Richard Wagner. The drama is founded on a story of Perceval or Parsifal of the Arthurian cycle. Wolfram von Eschenbach told the legend in an epic poem entitled Parzival, written in the early part of the thirteenth century. It was based probably on a French epic by Christian de Troyes of the twelfth century, although the story had appeared in several prose forms. From the French it passed into the literature of nearly every European nation. The story runs that Parzival's father fell in battle, and, to avoid a like fate for her child, his mother brought him up in the forest in ignorance of knightly customs. After many adventures, he reached Arthur's court and became a knight of the Round Table. He then renounced his allegiance to God and wandered away, but at last, learning the true nature of God and of the Grail, he was purified and restored to his place as a knight of the Round Table. Wagner's drama, somewhat changed from this old story, was written in German in 1877. The music was composed in 1879.