In 1886 Maurice Barrès wrote, ‘On va à Bayreuth pour se faire voir, pour se pousser, pour se distraire (One goes to Bayreuth to be seen, to put oneself forward, to enjoy oneself ). A decade later Albert Lavignac elaborated on this theme:

While Bayreuth became for many just one more destination on the society round, for musicians attendance there continued to offer significant opportunities for social—and thus professional—advancement. As well as the élite of the ‘Petit Bayreuth’, among the regular visitors were important salon hosts and hostesses such as the Comte and Comtesse de Saussine, the Comtesse de Chambrun, and the Princesse de Scey-Montbéliard (née Winnaretta Singer, later Princesse de Polignac).

Maurice Bagès's career was materially assisted by the connections forged through his regular attendance at Bayreuth, and as wagnérisme blossomed in—or perhaps was consumed by—the salons, his reputation flowered with it. Bagès's first documented performances in the grand salons were for the Comtesse de Chambrun (who had hosted the Bayreuth jollities reported by d’Indy in 1886; see p. 119 above): around New Year 1888 he performed extracts from Tristan, Parsifal, and Die Walküre before a Parisian audience of the Bayreuth faithful. In March 1890 he appeared at the behest of Mme Hellman, the doyenne of the Petit Bayreuth, singing Tristan opposite his hostess’s Isolde in a salon performance of the first act of that opera. This, as Gil blas breathlessly reported, constituted an effective French première of Tristan sung in the original German, its authenticity guaranteed by the Wagnerian pedigrees of ‘two eminent musicians, who brought from their many visits to Bayreuth the unfiltered traditions of Wagner's works’.

In 1891 Bagès played in two partial performances of Die Walküre, again staged by Mme Hellman, to the accompaniment of an eight-hand (twopiano) reduction by Dukas.