It is an epic tale of blood and honour, of dynastic succession and fratricide, played out against the swelling tones of Wagner's music in the Bavarian hilltop opera house at Bayreuth.
Lohengrin, the opera that opened the Bayreuth festival last night, is dramatic stuff too - but Keith Warner's new production will be hard put to match the explosive power of the war among the Wagners for control of the most prestigious event in Germany's cultural calendar.
The latest twist in the tale began early this year, when Wolfgang Wagner (79), the grandson of the composer, announced that he would retire in 2001, after half a century at the helm in Bayreuth. His niece, Nike, a cultural historian, became the immediate favourite to succeed him, despite a history of strained relations with her family.
But Wolfgang shocked the opera world last week when he declared he had changed his mind about retiring and vowed to retain control of the festival well into the next century. He claims that a cut in the federal government's subsidy is such a threat to Bayreuth's future that he is the only person capable of safeguarding it.
Nonsense, insists Nike, who believes her uncle is playing for time until he can hand over control of Bayreuth to his second wife and personal assistant, Gudrun - who is, at 55, just one year older than Nike.
"Everybody knows that Gudrun reached her position as a collaborator through the marriage bed and not through art and culture. My guess is that our theatre and music people will regard her candidature as the laughing stock of the nation," she said.
Wagner family feuds are almost as much a part of Bayreuth tradition as the operas themselves, which have been performed in the theatre, designed by Richard Wagner himself, since 1876. Although the festival is now controlled by a foundation and is partly financed from public funds, its constitution specifies that its director should "in principle" be a Wagner.
Wolfgang has been at odds with most of his family since 1976, when he told Playboy that none of his relations was fit to succeed him. Since then, he has banned his son, Gottfried, from setting foot in the opera house and dismissed his daughter Eva's work at Covent Garden and the Paris Opera as unimpressive.
But Nike has long been the most uncomfortable thorn in the old man's side, not least because of her claim that Wolfgang is guilty of suppressing information about the Wagner family's relationship with the Nazis.
Hitler was a fanatical admirer of Wagner and he took a keen interest in the festival at Bayreuth, becoming close friends of the Wagner family long before he came to power in 1933. Wolfgang's English-born mother, Winifred, was especially close to Hitler, who once described her as "the only person I could marry as Fuhrer".
The festival is undoubtedly a commercial success, recouping 63 per cent of its budget through ticket sales as every performance is sold out months in advance. But there are signs that Bayreuth is losing some of its artistic clout and failing to attract the brightest stars in the opera world.
"There must be a change, because the institution of Bayreuth and its director are both going senile," Nike said last week.
Nike has already submitted her application to succeed her uncle at Bayreuth, promising to run the festival in tandem with "a distinguished musical figure". This may refer to Daniel Barenboim, who has conducted at Bayreuth regularly since 1981 and appears almost unique in enjoying friendly relations with all the Wagners.
"I think the point has come - and it may have come two or three years ago - to think again about the future of Bayreuth. I think even Wolfgang Wagner would agree with that," he said.
Wolfgang has indeed been thinking about the future and he has already nominated a successor in a confidential letter to the board of the Bayreuth foundation. He is understood to have proposed that Gudrun should run the festival alongside the conductor Guiseppe Sinopoli.
Apart from Gudrun and Nike, two further Wagners are hovering in the wings - Wolfgang's daughter Eva and his nephew Wieland Lafferentz, who runs the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg.
Some insiders claim that Wolfgang's long-term plan is to pass the succession on to Katharina Wagner, his only daughter with Gudrun. Katharina is just 19 but she has already gained backstage experience and has signed on for a university degree in theatre studies.
The latest bout of feuding within the family has prompted some Bavarian politicians to look at ways of wresting control of Bayreuth from the Wagners. They argue that the festival is too important an element in Germany's culture to be left to the mercy of such a strikingly dysfunctional family.
Barenboim agrees that Bayreuth is more important than the individuals who run it and he warns that their fondness for feuding could prove to be the Wagners' undoing.
"These private matters really don't interest me. But it's a pity for the place that they have become public. The family should wash their linen at home," he said.
