Barry Millington, The ‘Ring’ in Cardiff

Every opera company of any status wants to prove its worth by tilting its sword at Wagner’s Ring. Few companies have the capacity, the resources or the chutzpah, however, to mount their own Ring and then take it round the world. The Kirov Opera’s near-unique undertaking attracted enormous interest – the cycle at the Wales Millennium Centre was sold out within four hours of the tickets becoming available last March – and deeply flawed as the production is in theatrical terms, there is no denying the magnitude of the company’s achievement.