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Ever since Hitler’s passion for them became part of the Nazi story, Wagner’s operas have been an ideological battleground, with contention swirling round his four-part epic Der Ring der Nibelungen, based on Nordic myth – what is its allegory telling us, and whose side are we meant to be on? There are no straight answers, and the pressure is now on every director to bring a fresh slant to his or her production. Barrie Kosky – a rich mix of gay and Jewish, brought up in Australia and based in Berlin – has taken up the challenge for the Royal Opera, and the initial results are tantalising. His vision of Das Rheingold, the Ring’s first episode, focuses on the image of a spectral naked old crone and the trunk of a rotted fallen tree. What this suggests is a world drying up and dying fast, in which greed for gold – which pours liquid out of the tree – corrupts both the opportunist dwarf Alberich and the ruling class of gods led by the devious Wotan
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