A musically intimate folktale

Wagner’s importance in the development of musical drama could hardly be overestimated. From a firm opposition to the conception of opera as entertainment and mere spectacular assembling of conventions, he promoted a form of music theater in which words, sounds and visual elements are supposed to absorb the spectator in a full aesthetic experience that leaves no space for distractions. In order to do so, Wagner gave particular importance to the mis-en-scène stressing what he called "the natural mode of language" in contrast to the urban and cosmopolitan visual language of Italian opera and French grand-opéra. This "natural mode" consisted of a carefully planned set of stage instructions with which Wagner filled his poetic texts. But nowadays after almost one and a half century since Wagner’s death, what are we supposed to do with his…