Many arts companies are easing their way back into live performance, choosing to stage small-scale productions at the start of 2021 as they negotiate restrictions around COVID-19.

Instead, Melbourne Opera has announced that it will tackle one of the pinnacles of the operatic repertoire, Wagner’s epic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungen) – a work of such extraordinary scale that it is often dubbed the Everest of opera.

Eddie Muliaumaseli’i will play Wotan in Melbourne Opera’s Das Rheingold

The Ring Cycle will begin in February 2021 with Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), staged at the recently renovated Regent Theatre. The Cycle will culminate in 2023 with Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), when the company will also perform all four operas back to back in one complete Cycle.

Melbourne Opera is an independent company, which relies on ticket sales and sponsors including its founding patron Lady Primrose Potter. The MO Ring Cycle will be the first independent production of the Ring in Australia since 1913. It follows a number of Wagner operas staged by MO in...