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Excellent vocal acting and total commitment to the text make for a riveting piece of operatic storytelling, driven by James Schouten's powerful Loge.

A fully-staged performance of Wagner's Das Rheingold transforms Walt Disney Concert Hall to an opera house where the orchestra is the star. 

The opening Opera Australia's much-delayed Ring cycle contains wonderful visuals, and a standout performance from Warwick Fyfe as Alberich, but also moments of bafflement and excess.

The first instalment of Covent Garden's new Ring is excellent all round from orchestra and voices, with Barrie Kosky providing plenty of ideas to tease us as to how the cycle will continue. 

Despite some confused visual elements, an excellent musical performance makes Seattle Opera's production well worth watching.

Sven-Erich Bechtolf's staging of Wagner's Ring returns with Franz Welser-Möst at the helm for the final time, having recently announced his retirement of the cycle from his repertoire. 

A strong opener to Melbourne Opera's all-Australian complete Ring, the first to be performed outside a state capital, in the regional Victorian city of Bendigo.

Martyn Brabbins conducts an excellent ENO orchestra and consistently good ensemble cast as Richard Jones delivers a wealth of narrative detail to introduce Wagner's Ring.

The Bayreuth Festival's new Ring gets off to a promising start with a tautly directed Rheingold, but will we find out what it all means?

Melbourne Opera has produced a critically and popularly successful Das Rheingold, which bodes well for the planned development of a full Ring cycle over the next four years.

Deutsche Oper Berlin returns in rousing style with a pared-down, open-air Rheingold on its “Parkdeck”.

For any opera house, the production of a new Wagner Ring cycle is a huge undertaking and becomes a mission statement. For Finnish National Opera, its mission is to stage an all-Finnish Ring.

Daniel Barenboim led a performance of deliberate tempo with a great ensemble of singers.  Guy Cassiers‘ production, while visually stunning at times, does little to enhance the performance.

In an unusually convincing concert performance, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Finnish National Opera emphasised the lyrical aspects of Wagner's Das Rheingold.

Jonathan Dove's lean reduction of Wagner’s score for just 18 players is performed at the Grimeborn Festival in Julia Burbach's staging. 

Hartmut Schörghofer's updated concert staging receives strong singing from everyone and a thrilling orchestral performance.

Carsen's scaled-down Ring makes a timely comeback with a melancholy message of decay.

Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera Orchestra get the Ring cycle off to a blazing start; unusually, it's Lise Davidsen and the female cast who take the vocal honours.

At San Francisco Opera, conductor Donald Runnicles and a top-notch cast deliver a delicious Rheingold in Francesca Zambello's colorful production.

Wagner demands vocal resilience from the large cast of singers in Das Rheingold, but Willy Decker wants strong thigh muscles as well.

Robert Hayward was unafraid to 'go ugly' when need be in Jurowski's symphonically executed concert performance. 

With Andris Nelsons' withdrawal from Bayreuth last year, the BSO’s summer home, Tanglewood, became the venue for his Wagner with a concert performance of Das Rheingold

Oper Leipzig's Das Rheingold unfolds with no set changes, giving Wagner's music plenty of opportunities to fuel the imagination.

Alan Gilbert reaches a pinnacle at the end of his tenure at the New York Philarmonic.

John Lundgren, bullet-headed, youthful and overbearing, gave a world-class performance as Wotan. 

A festive air was palpable – the house was technically sold out – as the first of a set of three Ring cycles launched at the Wiener Staatsoper. 

The Hallé's oddly-ordered Ring arrives at the beginning with Das Rheingold.

The revival of Neil Armfield's Melbourne Ring is relaunched with a successful Rheingold, sensitively conducted by Pietari Inkinen, with an especially fine performance from Warwick Fyfe as Alberich.

Highly idiomatic and effective singing by Greer Grimsley, Denyce Graves and other cast members, coupled with inventive stagecraft wizardry, make the Minnesota Opera's first-ever Rheingold a memorable production.

In spite of some questionable staging, Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its Ring cycle on a strong note with a stellar cast, notably featuring Eric Owens’ role debut as Wotan.

Valery Gergiev conducts the Mariinsky Opera in a vocally strong Das Rheingold, a promising beginning to Edinburgh International Festival’s Ring in concert over the coming years.

Bayreuth's controversial Ring returns with a new conductor and a refreshed cast.

Sebastian Weigle leads a somewhat light-footed but satisfying account with a fine orchestra and good ensemble of singers in an architecturally stunning production.

Opera North's cycle offers a form of personal Wagner therapy: all four music dramas in concert performances, but with carefully choreographed video and lighting effects. 

The revival of Das Rheingold at Staatsoper Berlin was still marred by distracting use of dancers on stage, but musically it was a great success. 

Das Rheingold stages flawed American Ambitions in the first Ring Cycle in Washington DC. 

Saffron Opera Group's opening salvo bodes exceptionally well for their planned full cycle of concert performances of Wagner's Ring over the next two years. 

The first installment of Frank Castorf's controversial Ring is applauded on its 2015 revival at Bayreuth, but arguably the incessant visual action detracts from the appreciation of the music. 

Vienna Staatsoper revived Wagner's Ring Cycle with a splendid orchestral performance of Das Rheingold led by Sir Simon Rattle.

Gerd Grochowski made a stunning Wotan and Michael Bedjai a cheerful Loge in Landestheater Linz’s production of Das Rheingold.

Kriegenburg's staging of Wagner's Ring cycle begins with a visually appealing but intellectually empty Rheingold.

Earnest singing and dramatic insight made Das Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic a remarkable evening. 

Vladimir Jurowski is a wily programmer. Pairing a concert performance of Rachmaninov's The Miserly Knight with extracts from Das Rheingold seemed a shrewd move.

In this second year of Bayreuth's bicentennial Der Ring, Oleg Bryjak shines as an outstanding Alberich. Frank Castorf's production is striking but as yet incomprehensible.

Wagner’s music proves that one does not need elaborate sets nor famous singers for a satisfying performance.

This production came together brilliantly to illustrate the story of Das Rheingold. But the star of the show was MüPa’s Béla Bartók Hall, with its extraordinary acoustic.

Fulham Opera's intense, beautiful, powerful opening to their Ring cycle at the lovely St John's Church in Fulham was a privilege to watch, and promises well for all remaining nights.

Putting on a Ring cycle is normally considered a major undertaking for any opera company. For a mid-sized provincial opera company, the idea of staging the whole cycle in a weekend seems barely short of insane. But that’s what Opéra de Dijon are doing – Das Rheingold and Die Walküre last night, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung tonight, and it just had to be seen.