Ken Howard/The Metropolitan Opera

"I utterly disagree with those who were dissatisfied with the decorations, the scenery and the mechanical contrivances at Bayreuth (for The Ring.) Far too much industry and ingenuity was applied to the task of chaining the imagination to matters which did not belie their epic origin."

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878 

Seems there's been disagreement on these things from the very beginning.