Das Rheingold

First performance:
Munich; September 22, 1869.

First performance as part of a Ring cycle:
Bayreuth; August 13, 1876.

First San Francisco Opera performance:
November 1, 1935

Read Complete Synopsis

• Scene 1

  
  Three young women—Woglinde, Wellgunde, and Flosshilde—play in a mountain river. They are charged with guarding the gold deep in the water, and they at first scarcely notice the Nibelung, Alberich, who tries to catch the free-spirited girls as they tease him. They explain that this gold is all-powerful: if fashioned into a ring, its wearer would rule the world. But they are content that the gold is safe, since whoever would steal the treasure must renounce love. Hearing this secret, Alberich renounces love and steals the gold.

• Scene 2

   

  Fricka reproaches her husband Wotan, ruler of the gods, for having promised her sister Freia to the giants, Fafner and Fasolt, as payment for constructing their new home, Valhalla. Wotan replies that he never meant to keep his word. When Fafner and Fasolt arrive to claim Freia, Wotan tells them that they must accept another form of payment. Fafner, aware that the gods would lose their eternal youth and power without Freia’s golden apples, decides to take her hostage. Donner, the god of thunder, and Froh, the god of spring, try to defend their sister Freia, to no avail. The fire demi-god Loge suggests that the giants might find Alberich’s gold an acceptable substitute for Freia and proposes that Wotan steal the gold, a portion of which Alberich has used to forge the all-powerful Ring. The giants take Freia away until evening, when they will return to claim the Nibelung’s gold as ransom. Wotan asks Loge to accompany him to steal Alberich’s treasure in Nibelheim.

• Scene 3

  
  In the underground caverns of Nibelheim, Alberich tries on the Tarnhelm—a magical chain-mail helmet his brother Mime has forged that transforms the wearer into any size or shape—and uses it to torment Mime and his Nibelung slaves. Wotan and Loge arrive, and Alberich suspiciously questions them and boastfully tells them of his plan to overthrow the gods and rule the world. Loge tricks Alberich into using the Tarnhelm to transform himself into a toad, and Wotan and Loge seize him and drag him back up to Earth.

• Scene 4

  
  Back in the world of the gods, Loge and Wotan tell Alberich that they will free him only if he yields all his gold, including the Tarnhelm and the Ring. Alberich resists until the Ring is torn from his finger. As he leaves, he places a curse upon it: until the Ring returns to him, trouble, envy, and death will befall all who possess or crave it. The giants return with their hostage Freia and demand the Nibelung gold in exchange for her. Just then, Erda, the earth goddess, magically appears and warns Wotan to yield everything, including the Ring, as it spells doom for the gods. Wotan surrenders the Ring, and then Fafner kills Fasolt to claim the Ring, the Tarnhelm, and the hoard for himself. Fricka urges Wotan to turn his thoughts to their new home Valhalla, while Froh and Donner summon a rainbow bridge to take them there.