Beginning in 1848, Wagner worked on the first piece in the Ring Cycle that would take him thirty years to complete. Wagner described Das Rheingeld as the “preface” since it expounds the conflicts that drives the remaining three operas: the Nibelung striving for world domination steal the gold from the spirits of the Rhein. The cast in 2010 is largely identical to that of last year’s highly successful production. Alan Titus who debuted at the Bayreuth Festival in 19998 as the Flying Dutchman, first performed Wotan under Giuseppe Sinopoli i...n 2000. From 2002 Hartmut Welker sang the role of the evil gnome on the Green Hill.