‘Ein Lichter Tempel’: Richard Laing finds Monsalvat located just off Fleet Street in central London

In an attempt to ensure that performances of Parsifal conformed as closely as possible to Wagner’s vision, Bayreuth sought to maintain a monopoly on productions until 1914. And yet it is tempting to imagine the composer or his descendants granting special dispensation to the Temple Church. Here is a place of Christian worship founded in 1162 (around the time of the birth of Wolfram von Eschenbach) by the Knights Templar, legendary custodians of the Holy Grail, and modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.