Editing Das Rheingold (section)

===Revivals===
====Traditional productions====
[[File:FischerRheingold.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Emil Fischer (bass)|Emil Fischer]] as Wotan at the 1889 New York premiere]]
After the 1876 festival, ''Das Rheingold'' was not seen again at Bayreuth for 20 years, until Cosima revived the ''Ring'' cycle for the 1896 festival.{{sfn|Spotts|1994|p=116}} Meanwhile, opera houses across Europe sought to mount their own productions, the first to do so being the [[Vienna State Opera]], which staged ''Das Rheingold'' on 24 January 1878.<ref>{{cite web|title= Spielplan der Wiener Oper 1869 bis 1955|url= http://www.mdw.ac.at/iatgm/operapolitics/spielplan-wiener-oper/web/opus/142|publisher= Universität für Musik und Darstellende Wien|language= de|access-date= 27 July 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170105170731/http://www.mdw.ac.at/iatgm/operapolitics/spielplan-wiener-oper/web/opus/142|archive-date= 5 January 2017|url-status= dead}}</ref> In April 1878 ''Das Rheingold'' was produced in [[Leipzig]], as part of the first full ''Ring'' cycle to be staged outside Bayreuth.{{sfn|Jacobs|1980|pp=115–116}} London followed suit in May 1882, when ''Rheingold'' began a cycle at [[Her Majesty's Theatre|Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket]], under the baton of [[Anton Seidl]].{{sfn|Kennedy et al, 2013|p=770}} In the years following the London premiere, ''Ring'' cycles were staged in many European capitals. 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.{{sfn|Carr|1997|p=51}}

The American premiere of ''Das Rheingold'' was given by the New York [[Metropolitan Opera]] in January 1889, as a single opera, with Seidl conducting. The production used [[Carl Emil Doepler]]'s original Bayreuth costume designs, and scenery was imported from Germany.<ref name=Met>{{cite web|title= United States premiere, ''Das Rheingold''|url= http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=6970&limit=500&xBranch=ALL&xsdate=&xedate=&theterm=Das%20Rheingold%3A%20Alberich%20%5BBeck,%20Joseph%5D&x=0&xhomepath=&xhome=|publisher= Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date= 28 July 2018|archive-date= 24 February 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210224211258/http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/fullcit.w?xCID=6970&limit=500&xBranch=ALL&xsdate=&xedate=&theterm=Das%20Rheingold%3A%20Alberich%20%5BBeck,%20Joseph%5D&x=0&xhomepath=&xhome=|url-status= dead}}</ref> According to ''[[The New York Times]]'', "[t]he scenery, costumes and effects were all designed and executed with great art and caused admirable results."<ref name=Met/> Of particular note was the performance of [[Joseph Beck (baritone)|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".<ref name=Met/> On 4 March 1889, with largely the January cast, Seidl conducted ''Das Rheingold'' to begin the first American ''Ring'' cycle.<ref>{{cite web|title= United States premiere, ''Ring'' cycle|url= http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm|publisher= Metropolitan Opera Archives|access-date= 28 July 2018|archive-date= 12 August 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180812164001/http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm|url-status= dead}}</ref> 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),{{refn|In Melbourne, the British impresario [[Thomas Quinlan (impresario)|Thomas Quinlan]] staged all four ''Ring'' operas, although not on consecutive evenings; he interspersed them with performances of operas by [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]], [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]], [[Charles Gounod|Gounod]] and others. The complete ''Ring'' cycle as an entity was not staged in Australia until 1998.<ref>{{cite web|title= The Melbourne Ring Cycle is a once in a century celebration|url= https://theconversation.com/the-melbourne-ring-cycle-is-a-once-in-a-century-celebration-19519|website=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]]|date= 22 November 2013|access-date= 29 July 2018}}</ref> |group= n}}, and Rio de Janeiro (1921), as well many other major venues.<ref name= Perfhist>{{cite web|title= Performance History|url= http://opera.stanford.edu/Wagner/Rheingold/history.html|work= opera.stanford.edu|publisher= Opera Glass|access-date= 29 July 2018}}</ref>

After the 1896 revival, ''Das Rheingold'' was being performed regularly at the Bayreuth Festival, although not every year, within a variety of ''Ring'' productions.<ref>{{cite web|title= Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival: all the productions|url= http://www.wagneropera.net/bayreuth/bayreuth-ring-productions.htm|publisher= Wagneropera.net|access-date= 1 August 2018}}</ref> Until the [[Second World War]], under the successive artistic control of Cosima (from 1896 to 1907), her son [[Siegfried Wagner|Siegfried]] (1908 to 1930) and Siegfried's widow [[Winifred Wagner|Winifred]] (1931 to 1943),{{sfn|Millington|2006|pp=147–148}} these productions did not deviate greatly from the stagings devised by Wagner for the 1876 premiere. With few exceptions, this generally conservative, even reverential approach – which extended to all Wagner's operas – tended to be mirrored in performances outside Bayreuth.{{sfn|Holman|2001|p=373}}

====New Bayreuth and experimentation====
The Bayreuth Festival, suspended after the Second World War, resumed in 1951 under [[Wieland Wagner]], Siegfried's son, who introduced his first ''Ring'' cycle in the "New Bayreuth" style. 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.{{sfn|Millington|2006|p=165}} The stark New Bayreuth style dominated most ''Rheingold'' and ''Ring'' productions worldwide until the 1970s, when a reaction to its bleak austerity produced a number of fresh approaches. The Bayreuth centenary ''Ring'' production of 1976, directed by [[Patrice Chéreau]] provided a significant landmark in the history of Wagner stagings: "Chéreau's demythologization of the tetralogy entailed an anti-heroic view of the work ... his setting of the action in an industrialized society ... along with occasional 20th century costumes and props, suggested a continuity between Wagner's time and our own".{{sfn|Millington|2006|p=166}} 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".{{sfn|Spotts|1994|pp=282–284}} According to ''[[The Observer]]''{{'}}s critic, "I had not experienced in the theatre protest as furious as that which greeted ''Das Rheingold''."<ref>{{cite news|last=Heyworth|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Heyworth|title=Guns on the Rhine: music|newspaper=[[The Observer]]|date=15 August 1976|page=19|id={{ProQuest|476337514}}}} {{subscription required}}</ref> Eventually this hostility was overcome; the final performance of this production, in 1980, was followed by an ovation that lasted ninety minutes.{{sfn|Holman|2001|p=374}}

====Post-1980s====
The iconoclastic centenary ''Ring'' was followed by numerous original interpretations, at Bayreuth and elsewhere, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The 1988 festival opened with [[Harry Kupfer]]'s grim interpretation of ''Das Rheingold'', in which Wotan and the other gods were represented as gangsters in mafioso sunglasses. This entire ''Ring'', says Spotts, was "a parable of how the power-hungry cheat, lie, bully, terrorise and kill to get what they want".{{sfn|Spotts|1994|p=299}} 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.<ref>{{cite news|first=Rothstein|last=Edward|author-link=Edward Rothstein|title=Review/Opera; The Lyric in Chicago Starts Its ''Ring''|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/09/arts/review-opera-the-lyric-in-chicago-starts-its-ring.html|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date= 9 February 1993}} {{subscription required}}</ref> [[Keith Warner]], in his 2004 production for [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]], portrayed, according to Barry Millington's analysis, "the shift from a deistic universe to one controlled by human beings".{{sfn|Millington|2006|p=169}} 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 [[vivisection]]s and "unspeakable" genetic experiments.{{sfn|Millington|2006|p=169}}

From the late 1980s a backlash against the tendency towards ever more outlandish interpretations of the ''Ring'' cycle led to several new productions in the more traditional manner.{{sfn|Millington|2006|p=167}} [[Otto Schenk]]'s staging of ''Das Rheingold'', first seen at the [[Metropolitan Opera|New York Met]] in 1987 and forming the prelude to his full ''Ring'' cycle two years later, was described by ''The New York Times'' as "charmingly old fashioned", and as "a relief to many beleaguered Wagnerites".<ref name= Tommasini/> [[James Morris (bass-baritone)|James Morris]], who sang Wotan in the 1987 production, and [[James Levine]], the original conductor, both returned in 2009 when Schenk brought his ''Ring'' cycle back to the Met for a final performance.<ref name= Tommasini>{{cite news|first=Tommasini|last=Anthony|author-link=Anthony Tommasini|title= Traditional ''Ring'' Begins Its Finale|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/arts/music/27rhei.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date= 26 March 2009}} {{subscription required}}</ref>