Wagner worked indefatigably to establish ‘model’ performances of his operas. But he hoped that others would devise better solutions to the huge problems of stage performance that were intrinsic to their conception. His widow Cosima set the clock back by insisting on fidelity to the imperfect ‘models’ that had been left behind. This attitude proved a powerful spur to the theatrical revolutionaries who were knocking on her door. Their revolution was to demonstrate that Wagner’s works could be staged in different ways in different times and that this would be more faithful to his mythopoeic ambitions than Cosima’s deluded strategy.

This chapter attempts to describe the principal landmarks in stage production between Wagner’s inauguration of the Ring in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876 and Patrice Chéreau’s sensational presentation of the same work in the same theatre a hundred years later.