Opera used to be the jolly stuff, call it Mozart or bel canto, or Wagner.
Wagner was for hard-core fans prepared to sit on excruciatingly uncomfortable seats (like most of the ones at The Globe) and ready to wait fifteen years to snag a ticket at Bayreuth. Bernard Levin led this Extreme Opera Tendency. Gosh, now the veil of the temple has been rent. Mortals are allowed into Valhalla and can bring a picnic. Wagner is put on as country house opera.
Of course it’s the safe stuff: Rhine maidens, gold, Siegfried and all that rot. Not even the Four Gees (Glyndebourne, The Grange, Grange Park, Garsington) have dared put on Parsifal or Tannhäuser. The Knights of the Grail are too mysterious and the music is tricky too. In fact the State of the Teutonic Order is perfectly comprehensible. It’s to the Baltic as the Knights of St Jerusalem were to the Mediterranean.
“The State of the Teutonic Order was a theocratic state located along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. It was formed by the knights of the Teutonic Order during the early 13th century Northern Crusades in the region of Prussia. In 1237, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword merged with the Teutonic Order of Prussia and became known as its branch – the Livonian Order (while their state, Terra Mariana, covering present-day Estonia, Latvia, and a small part of Russia, became part of the State of the Teutonic Order). At its greatest territorial extent during the early 15th century, the State encompassed Chełmno Land, Courland, Gotland, Livonia, Estonia, Neumark, Pomerelia, Prussia and Samogitia.” (Wikipedia)
So Wagner didn’t have to make anything up or delve into mythology.
In 1876, the Women’s Centennial Committee commissioned Wagner to write this to mark a century of independence in America. They paid him $5,000.