Calixto Bieito is a Spanish theatre and opera director. His 2010 production of Parsifal at the Stuttgart Staatsoper is a tale of spiritual crisis set in a Post-Apocalyptic world.
  
Inspired by the novel “The Road” by American author Cormac McCarthy, Bieito’s Parsifal is confronted with the remains of civilisation. The protagonists in the novel, father and son, wander through post-apocalyptic, deserted and desolate America. Accordingly, Bieito sees Parsifal set in the apocalyptic remains of the world. Stage designer Susanne Gschwender creates a destroyed landscape covered by ash, where a ruined motorway bridge is the only evidence of a bygone civilisation. Mercè Paloma provides the characters with an existential basic outfit: protection from heat, cold and pollution.