Synopsis - Das Rheingold Brünnhilde has just betrayed the man she loves more than anything in the world. Now she wants to find out how it came to this. She seeks back to the beginning, to her father’s attic to find the family mementos, and she starts to recall how it all began...                50 years earlier A young man, Alberich, tries to charm the three young Rhinemaidens. They tease him, entice him to woo them and then humiliate him. Alberich is miserable that no one will love him. When he sees the maidens adoring a handsome young man whom they call the Rhinegold, he feels even more hurt and angry. He kills the man in anguish and steals his heart. He seeks to create a ring that gives him world power, but he can only do so if he forswears love. Far away, the ruler of the world, the super-god Wotan, is getting ready to move into his new castle, Valhalla, which two giants, Fasolt and Fafner, have built for him. But his wife, Fricka, reminds him that he has promised the giants her sister Freia, the goddess of love, as payment for the castle. Fricka’s brothers, Donner and Froh, reproach him too. Wotan calms them: He has asked his advisor Loge, the god of fire, to find a different way to pay the giants. Loge tells the giants about Alberich’s new ring, and they subsequently ask Wotan to give them the ring instead of Freia. Wotan refuses, but when the giants hold Freia to ransom he realises that he and the other gods only sustain immortality when eating from Freia’s golden apples. So he must acquire the ring quickly and pay the ransom. Top   Print With his newfound power, Alberich has taken seat in his homeland Nibelheim, a regime of terror. The ring empowers him to take on different shapes or make himself invisible. His brother, Mime, tells Loge and Wotan that Alberich in his quest for power has run amok. Alberich challenges Wotan’s power and threatens to seize world power. But Loge entices him with flattery to demonstrate his new skills, and when Alberich transforms himself into a small toad, Wotan and Loge have no difficulty in catching him. Wotan forces Alberich to exchange the ring for regained freedom. Alberich is shattered and curses the ring. Everyone who wears it must die. Wotan, however, is beguiled by the power the ring instils, and when the giants return, he hesitates to part with the ring. When the crisis reaches its pinnacle, Wotan meets a woman, Erda, with whom he falls head over heels in love. She reminds him that life should be lived, and he soon realises that love should not be traded for power. He gives the ring to the giants who immediately start a bloody battle over it, and one is killed by the other. Loge tries to confront Wotan with the fact that the ring is stolen. Before entering Valhalla, Wotan feels he must silence Loge: he knows too much. He transforms him from a god to pure fire. Finally, Wotan and his family can take possession of Valhalla, but all he thinks of is seeing Erda again... Top   Print The four operas Das Rheingold Die Walküre Siegfried Götterdämmerung Articles Kasper Bech Holten: Mythologies Interview with Michael Schønwandt: On Das Rheingold Kasper Bech Holten: In Eternal Opposition Nila Parly: The Women of Das Rheingold Gallery See the photos from Das Rheingold Biographies The Ring Team... Cast See the cast Biographies are available at www.kglteater.dk Das Rheingold is sponsored by the Bikuben Foundation