Bryan Coxson, ‘A Contented Little Band of Artists’: The Manchester Six-Night ‘Ring’ Cycle

In the autumn of 1925, Manchester was the chosen location for a remarkable experiment. Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung was given over six nights, instead of four nights as intended by the composer. While this arrangement had been attempted in Germany, it was the first time it had been tried in the UK.

These performances were given at the Manchester Opera House by the British National Opera Company (BNOC), a company founded in 1921 and run by a committee of artists who had worked for the Sir Thomas Beecham Opera Company, which had gone into liquidation in 1920. It was active from 1922 to 1929.