Richard Wagner developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs. Wagner took 26 years from writing the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until he completed "Götterdämmerung" in 1874. The "Ring" takes about 15 hours to perform and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages. Wagner's final opera, "Parsifal" (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a ""Bühnenweihfestspiel"" ("festival play for the consecration of the stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail. It also carries
Bavarian State Orchestra premiere of his opera "Idomeneo", written in Munich. During the 1860s the orchestra, by then an integral part of the "Hofoper" (Court Opera), gave the world premieres of the Wagner operas "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", "Tristan und Isolde", and "Das Rheingold", followed in 1870 by "Die Walküre". Hans von Bülow was active as conductor at that time. Upon the German Revolution of 1918–1919 the name changed again, to its present form, reflecting the demise of the Bavarian monarchy. The Bavarian State Orchestra is today part of the Bavarian State Opera company, Germany's largest, which it serves as pit ensemble, based