Performer: Allison Oakes

Müpa's Ring sees all-round musical excellence for a third night in row, which will be remembered more than the various distracting miscues in the staging.

Hamburg's revival of a 2015 production is a musical success, but the director's concepts are sometimes too dense to tell a straightforward story.

As part of the annual Wagner festival in the Hungarian capital, Peter Seiffert and Allison Oakes star as the doomed lovers.

Frank Castorf's controversial but supremely well-cast Ring cycle is provocative to the last.

At the end, there was a profusion of boos and applause for the creative team: Castorf and co had given us a Ring cycle that was by turns infuriatingly indulgent, interestingly provocative, visually beautiful, puzzling and rewarding.

Frank Castorf's Soviet-era farm-setting does not obtrude on the emotional core of Wagner's Die Walküre, with excellent performances from Johan Botha, Anja Kampe and Claudia Mahnke, with superlative playing from the Festival Orchestra.