Rather than providing word-settings, the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, by using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas and situations.

Structure of the Ring cycle Having completed his opera Lohengrin in April 1848, Richard Wagner chose as his next subject Siegfried, the legendary hero of Germanic myth.

When Wotan tries to haggle, the giants depart, taking Freia with them as hostage and threatening to keep her forever unless the gods ransom her by obtaining and giving them the Nibelung's gold by the end of the day.

As the giants seize Freia and start to leave, Erda, the earth goddess, appears and warns Wotan of impending doom, urging him to give up the cursed ring.

[2] In February 1853, at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zürich, Wagner read the whole Ring text to an invited audience, after which all four parts were published in a private edition limited to 50 copies.

Among these stories, a magic ring and a hoard of gold held by the dwarf Andvari (Wagner's Alberich) are stolen by the gods Odin (Wotan) and Loki (Loge) and used to redeem a debt to two brothers.

Wagner may also have been influenced by the Rhine-based German legend of Lorelei, who lures fishermen on to the rocks by her singing, and by the Greek Hesperides myth in which three maidens guard a golden treasure.

J.K. Holman, in his "Listener's Guide and Concordance" (2001), cites the Alberich character as typifying Wagner's ability to "consolidate selected aspects from diverse stories to create ... vivid, consistent and psychologically compelling portrait[s]".

Wagner wanted to wait until the cycle was completed, when he would stage the work himself; also, his return to Munich would likely have precipitated a scandal, in view of his, at the time, affair with the married Cosima von Bülow.

[44] The 13 August premiere was an event of international importance, and attracted a distinguished audience which included Kaiser Wilhelm I, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and numerous representatives of the various European royal houses.

[47][n 4] Most of Europe's leading composers were also present, including Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Bruckner, Grieg, Saint-Saëns and Wagner's father-in law Franz Liszt, together with a large corps of music critics and opera house managers.

The huge influx of visitors overwhelmed the resources of the modest-sized town and caused considerable discomfort to some of the most distinguished of the guests; Tchaikovsky later described his sojourn at Bayreuth as a "struggle for existence".

[51] Some innovations worked well – the wheeled machinery used by the Rhinemaidens to simulate swimming was successful,[52] and the quality of the singing pleased even Wagner, who was otherwise in despair and refused to present himself to the audience despite their clamouring for him.

In Budapest on 26 January 1889, the first Hungarian performance of Das Rheingold, conducted by the young Gustav Mahler, was briefly interrupted when the prompt-box caught fire and a number of patrons fled the theatre.

"[58] Of particular note was the performance of Joseph Beck who sang Alberich: "a fine example of Wagnerian declamatory singing, His delivery of the famous curse of the ring was notably excellent in its distinctness and dramatic force".

[59] Thereafter, Das Rheingold, either alone or as part of the Ring, became a regular feature of the international opera repertory, being seen in Saint Petersburg (1889), Paris (1901), Buenos Aires (1910), Melbourne (1913),[n 6], and Rio de Janeiro (1921), as well many other major venues.

This was the antithesis of all that had been seen at Bayreuth before, as scenery, costumes and traditional gestures were abandoned and replaced by a bare disc, with evocative lighting effects to signify changes of scene or mood.

[65] Many of this production's features were highly controversial: the opening of Das Rheingold revealed a vast hydro-electric dam in which the gold is stored, guarded by the Rhinemaidens who were portrayed, in Spotts's words, as "three voluptuous tarts" – a depiction, he says, which "caused a shock from which no one quite recovered".

[69] In August Everding's Chicago Reingold (which would become part of a full Ring cycle four years later), the Rhinemaidens were attached to elasticated ropes manipulated from the wings, which enabled them to cavort freely through the air, using lip sync to co-ordinate with off-stage singers.

Edward Rothstein, writing in The New York Times, found the production "a puzzle ... cluttered with contraptions and conceits" which, he imagined, were visual motifs which would be clarified in later operas.

[70] Keith Warner, in his 2004 production for Covent Garden, portrayed, according to Barry Millington's analysis, "the shift from a deistic universe to one controlled by human beings".

[71] The dangers of subverted scientific progress were demonstrated in the third Rheingold scene, where Nibelheim was represented as a medical chamber of horrors, replete with vivisections and "unspeakable" genetic experiments.

[73] Das Rheingold was Wagner's first attempt to write dramatic music in accordance with the principles he had enunciated in Opera and Drama, hence the general absence in the score of conventional operatic "numbers" in the form of arias, ensembles and choruses.

[76] According to Barry Millington's analysis, Das Rheingold represents Wagner's purest application of the Opera and Drama principles, a rigorous stance that he would eventually modify.

The note of B♭ is added by the bassoons and the chord is further embellished as the horns enter with a rising arpeggio to announce the "Nature" motif,[79][80] outlining the lower partials of an harmonic series with an E♭ fundamental.

[82] The first two and last two notes of this short, lilting passage form a falling musical step which, in different guises, will recur throughout the opera, signifying variously the Rhinemaidens' innocence, their joy in the gold and conversely, in the minor key,[83] Alberich's woe at his rejection by the maidens, and his enslavement of the Nibelungs.

[84] The first appearance of the gold is signified by a muted horn call in the lower register, played under a shimmer of undulating strings,[85] conveying, says Holman, "the shining, innocent beauty of the Rhinegold in its unfashioned state.

ends with his declamation of the "Curse" motif – "one of the most sinister musical ideas ever to have entered the operatic repertoire", according to Scruton's analysis: "It rises through a half-diminished chord, and then falls through an octave to settle on a murky C major triad, with clarinets in their lowest register over a timpani pedal in F sharp".

[118] Since it was written as a prelude to the main events, Das Rheingold is in itself inconclusive, leaving numerous loose ends to be picked up later; its function, as Jacobs says, is "to expound, not to draw conclusions".

[120] Nevertheless, Philip Kennicott, writing in The Washington Post describes it as "the hardest of the four installments to love, with its family squabbles, extensive exposition, and the odd, hybrid world Wagner creates, not always comfortably balanced between the mythic and the recognizably human.