Richard Wagner’s Parsifal is chiefly based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s medieval German poem Parzival.
Wolfram’s Parzival is one of the most important German-language versions of the Grail story. It follows the development of the knight Parzival, whose encounters with the Grail community and its wounded ruler form the central spiritual narrative.
Wagner adapted this material for his final stage work, Parsifal, which premiered at the Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The opera reshapes the medieval story through Wagner’s distinctive musical and philosophical ideas.
The spelling difference can cause confusion: Wolfram’s poem is generally titled Parzival, while Wagner’s opera is titled Parsifal. Both names refer to the same broad Arthurian-Grail tradition, but they belong to different languages and works.