ABSTRACT
The highlight of the 1903–04 opera season in New York was the production of Wagner’s Parsifal that opened at the Metropolitan Opera House on Christmas Eve 1903. The success of this New York production, sung in German, led to a national tour in English. The advertisement for the film in the Thomas A. Edison Catalogue promised “the greatest religious subject that has been produced in motion pictures” and noted that a “large amount of time, labor and money has been expended in producing this picture”. Indeed, the film was, according to Niver, the “most ambitious and costly film” made by Porter and Edison during their collaboration. Condemned to wander the earth for her sin, she longs to meet a holy knight who will spurn her advances and thus enable her to effect her repentance and redemption. Gurnemanz and the Grail knights then appear, dragging behind them a young man who has killed a swan with his bow and arrow.
