Der Ring des Nibelungen returns to Melbourne three years after its première here. Those three cycles sold out quickly; these ones haven’t, understandably, but the State Theatre seemed pretty full on opening night. Some alterations have been made, but the production is largely intact. Several local singers retain their principal roles, but we have a new Siegmund, Wotan, Loge, Sieglinde, and Brünnhilde, all but the first from overseas. Neil Armfield – busy man that he is, working on his Adelaide Festival and now directing a new Magic Flute in Chicago – returns as the director.

It opens, of course, with Das Rheingold, Wagner’s ‘preliminary evening’. This opera is different from everything that follows, different in style and tone. Michael Tanner has written, ‘It is, for one thing, action-packed in a way no other of his works is.’ Das Rheingold had its première in Munich, in 1869; the first full cycle followed in 1876, at Bayreuth. The opera, much shorter than the others, has its aficionados. Arts Update recalls one conversation with Peter Porter and Roger Covell in Melbourne twenty years ago; both of these keen operamanes nominated it as their favourite Ring opera.