★★★★☆
Wagner’s Ring ends with the destruction of the world. But the world is clearly well wrecked even before we hear the first note of the first opera in the Royal Opera’s new cycle. Across a bare stage an old woman, entirely naked, slowly walks in total silence. She halts, buries her head in her hands in despair, then slowly revolves, as if recalling the entire catastrophe about to unfold.
Thus begins Barrie Kosky’s enthralling staging of Das Rheingold. The woman is Erda, the all-knowing Earth goddess. Usually she appears only briefly in Rheingold to warn Wotan that his actions will destroy the gods and everything else.
Here, however, she is ever present, albeit mostly mute (except when given a voice offstage by Wiebke
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