Amfortas is the wounded Grail king in Richard Wagner’s Parsifal.
In Wagner’s opera, Amfortas leads the knights who guard the Holy Grail and the sacred spear. He is suffering from a wound inflicted by the magician Klingsor with the spear, and the wound cannot heal until Parsifal arrives with the compassion and understanding needed to restore him.
Amfortas’s pain drives much of the opera’s dramatic action. The Grail community’s rituals continue, but his suffering makes its spiritual order incomplete. Parsifal’s eventual recognition of Amfortas’s anguish enables the resolution.
Amfortas is sometimes confused with Titurel, his father, who is the founder and elder associated with the Grail community. Gurnemanz is the senior knight who explains the setting to Parsifal, while Klingsor is the antagonist.