“The centrepiece of this year’s festival is a new Ring cycle – a great event at any opera house, at Bayreuth something akin to the second coming. The production is in the hands of conductor Christian Thielemann, Bayreuth’s favoured son, and director Tankred Dorst, an 80-year-old playwright who, despite never having directed an opera before, was appointed two years ago when Lars von Trier pulled out. Who says Bayreuth is conventional?”