Artiste: Edith Haller

With a plethora of theatre seats, stools and benches it was as if Willy Decker and Wolfgang Gussman had been elected ‘Chair-men of the bored”.

An exceptional musical performance was enhanced by a streamlined but ultimately moving staging in an evening of near perfection in Dresden.

Robert Dean Smith replacing an ailing tenor as Lohengrin was merely adequate but the rest of the cast and the superb orchestra made the modern production of Lohengrin in Munich memorable.