The Complete Ring Cycle

A Work Without Comparison

Richard Wagner conceived Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1848 and completed it in 1874. The four operas — Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung — require between fifteen and eighteen hours of performance over four consecutive evenings. No other work in Western art music approaches this scale.

The Ring is not an entertainment. It is a sustained encounter with mythology, psychology, politics, and the nature of power.

The Story

The Ring tells the story of a gold ring stolen from the Rhine maidens by the dwarf Alberich, the curse he places on it, and the three generations of gods, giants, heroes, and mortals destroyed by their desire to possess it. The final opera — Götterdämmerung, the Twilight of the Gods — ends with the destruction