Imagine a world without Wagner … it’s not easy, but let’s try

As the Bayreuth festival turns 150, we look at the composer’s huge and enduring influence, and wonder what might have happened to classical music in his absence? One hundred and fifty years ago this summer, Richard Wagner wanted to change the world. Not only the musical world, but nationhood, political thought, even the idea of what it means to be human. The inaugural Bayreuth festival opened on 13 August 1876, with the first complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen staged in Wagner’s custom-built Bayreuth Festspielhaus in Bavaria. The first audience included kings, emperors, aristocracy and

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