THE final arrivals from the Deutsche Oper Berlin were just a nail-biting few hours before this performance of Wagner’s four-hour epic began, a train journey from London replacing a cancelled flight.

A MODERN version of Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser opera has been cancelled in Germany after the opening-night audience complained about new scenes showing Jews being murdered and dying in gas chambers.

A lawsuit filed by a local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church against the director of the Novosibirsk State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet was dismissed, but the case could indicate an ...