We know that Siegfried – third opera in Der Ring des Nibelungen – had a curious gestation. Wagner put it aside after writing Act II, as if weary of Siegfried’s progress: this improbable hero’s search for love, fulfilment, individuation. For twelve years Wagner was diverted by love of a metaphysical kind (Tristan und Isolde, 1865) and by a rich comic social panoply, (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, 1868). When he resumed work on Siegfried in 1869, he did so with a new urgency and compositional brilliance. Unlike Das Rheingold (1869) and Die Walküre (1870), the opera would not be premièred until the first complete Ring cycle on 16 August 1876, one day before the première of Götterdämmerung. The venue was the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Wagner’s bespoke theatre, always intended to be temporary – but still there.