The curtain has risen again on the month-long Richard Wagner festival in Bayreuth, and a minor miracle. For the first time in memory, the operas onstage have been the centre of attention rather than the offstage Wagner family feud.
The highlight of this year's festival - itself the highlight of the German social calendar - is a new production of the 16-hour Ring cycle - 15 hours if you hurry. This Ring is special because it's the last time that the four-opera epic will be produced under Wolfgang Wagner, grandson of Richard Wagner.
The new Ring, staged in little more than two weeks by the German playwright Tankred Dorst, premiered in the northern Bavarian town to enthusiastic applause: another miracle considering that picky Wagner audiences normally prefer to boo.
Mixed in with the enthusiastic applause was also relief: German theatre directors have put the Ring cycle - and Bayreuth audiences - through a lot in the last years and the operas had begun to creak under the weight of contemporary commentary, be it the 1968 student revolution or German politics.
But Tankred Dorst, who never directed an opera before in his life, brought the Ring back to basics, saying in advance that he wanted to tell the story "without any major reference to today's events".
"This year's production exceeds the artistic standards of the previous years," said Arnold Jacobshagen, a musicology professor at Bayreuth University.
The 80-year-old Dorst was asked to take over as director by Wolfgang Wagner after the first choice for the job, Dancer in the Dark director Lars von Trier, stood aside abruptly.
Dorst is a popular German dramatist best known here for his mythical 1981 production Merlin or The Barren Land, making him an appropriate choice to tackle the Ring's mixture of German and Scandinavian legends that tells of the struggle to possess a ring, stolen from the Rhine, that grants the power of world domination.
Considering the story, it's little wonder that the Ring cycle - first performed in its entirety at the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 - so fascinated Adolf Hitler. Long before his rise to power he was a regular visitor to Bayreuth and became a close friend of Richard Wagner's daughter, Winifried.
"She was allowed to call him by his nickname, Wolf, and we became a kind of adoptive family for him," remembered Wolfgang Wagner, Winifried's son, in a recent interview. "When he became chancellor we children offered him the Sie [ formal form]. But Hitler retorted that it was out of the question. We know each other for a long time, he said, so we'll stay with Du."
Wolfgang Wagner says Hitler was hugely knowledgeable about his grandfather's music but had only a superficial understanding of its meaning.
"If he'd understood . . . he would have behaved differently and wouldn't have done certain things," said Wolfgang Wagner.
The 86-year-old has managed the festival alone since the death of his brother Wieland in 1966, and his autocratic style has played a large role in many Wagner family rows.
The liveliest was the Bayreuth succession battle that left the operas looking pale in comparison. Wieland Wagner's daughter Nike was determined to take control of the festival, as was Eva, Wolfgang's daughter from his first marriage.
But both appear to have burned their bridges and 27-year-old Katharina Wagner, Wolfgang's daughter from his second marriage, is now the anointed successor.
BAYREUTH FOR BEGINNERS
• Wagner (1813-1883) wrote 14 operas but only seven are performed at Bayreuth.
• He composed his seemingly endless melodies while wearing silk underwear.
• The Bayreuth Festspielhaus theatre was built for Wagner by "mad" King Ludwig II of Neuschwanstein Castle fame.
• Wagner's operas are so full of murder and illegal sex acts that if the protagonists were put on trial in Germany today, they would face a total of five life sentences and 90 years behind bars.
• The waiting list for tickets is 10 years long, but you'll still see Siegfried, Brünnhilde and friends before you see the winter solstice in Newgrange (13 years).
