Hello. It looks like you�re using an ad blocker that may prevent our website from working properly. To receive the best Tortoise experience possible, please make sure any blockers are switched off and refresh the page.

If you have any questions or need help, let us know at memberhelp@tortoisemedia.com

Das Rheingold

Das Rheingold

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

Photograph Getty Images