Rolling fields in emerald green, dotted with contented cows, fringed by rugged Alpine peaks: the setting for Erl's unlikely Wagner festival is itself so like a stage backdrop that it sometimes seems less real than the inside of the theatre.

A quick number-plate check of the cars lined up outside before a performance is like a lightning trip through Europe: Austria, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Lichtenstein. But in the open courtyard in front of Erl's Passionsspielhaus the impression broadens. New Zealanders, Scandinavians and Koreans have also made the pilgrimage to the Tyrol's answer to Bayreuth.