The Wagner Project: Das Rheingold

Wagner's first Ring opera has no pauses...and no humans!
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Underwater love: Alberich (Gunther von Kannen, center) pursues the three Rhinemaidens
in the opening scene of Das Rheingold.,
Image from the Bayreuth Festival, © 1991 Teldec/WBC/Unitel

Believe it or not, Wagner's enormous 15-hour Der Ring des Nibelungen (hereafter referred to as "the Ring Cycle) was originally supposed to be just one opera. In 1848, Richard Wagner sketched an opera called Siegfrieds Tod, which would retell the most famous incident from German myth and epic: the death of the hero Siegfried and the later fate of his beloved, the valkyrie (warrior maiden) Brunnhilde. And then, much like the ambitious god Wotan he realized that one opera wouldn't be enough.