The first opera in Richard Wagner's tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung - Rhinegold - the gold lies in the Rhine. The Rhine maidens play about it. It is only a pretty plaything for them. The Nibelung comes and steals it. Meanwhile, far above, Wotan and his wife Fricka awake and find Valhalla built, and now Wotan has to pay the giants. They arrive; Loge has not arrived. Loge arrives and makes his excuses — no man will give up a beautiful woman, for no matter what sum. But he tells of the Rhinegold, and the giants agree to accept it in lieu of Freia. Wotan and Loge go off and get the Rhine gold by a trick. But Alberich has shaped part of it into a magic ring, which gives its possessor absolute power over the whole world. When they come back to conclude the bargain with the giants, it is found necessary that Wotan should give up the ring also. He does so, after resolving on his grand idea, which will appear presently; and the gods enter Valhalla while the Rhine maidens below are heard bewailing the loss of their plaything. The ring is cursed, and no sooner do the giants begin to share their treasure than they fall to disputing about it. Fafner kills his brother, and making off with all, buries it in a cave, and, changing himself into a dragon, by virtue of the Tarnhelm which is amongst the treasure, he settles down to guard it. At any moment now Wotan's empire may be taken from him; the ring he must regain somehow, but by the laws written on his staff he may not perpetrate such an act of injustice as taking it himself. Now, though one would regret the loss of some of the music I have mentioned, the Rhinegold is tedious, long in proportion to the significance — musical and dramatic — of its content, and on the whole a bore. I never go to see it. The Fricka music in the second scene is as effective on the piano as in the theatre, and the last scene is as effective on a concert orchestra as in the theatre; in fact, in the theatre the device of a pasteboard rainbow, coloured to suit German taste, detracts from the effect. Only a fool would dare to say that Wagner should have done this, that or the other; but I venture to say that if he had not suffered from that very German malady, a desire to work back to the beginning of things, and to embody the result in his art, Richard Wagner would have found a better means than a two-hour long "fore-evening" to prepare for the real drama of the Ring of the Nibelung. The first part of Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung The Valkyrie.