MUSIC: Gods and Gold

If devotion to the works of Richard Wagner is a worldwide cult, then a performance of The Ring of the Nibelung is that religion's ultimate rite: a fervent emotional and aesthetic observance. Any opera house that is able to produce the Ring cycle -- four long, mythic music dramas, based on old Norse and German sagas -- is assured of a sellout. Audiences travel across continents to submit themselves to the Ring's thrilling embrace. Among Wagner's many other theatrical gifts was his ability to build a climax at the end of every act, so that the audience is continually swept into a musical catharsis. Movie scores -- like those by John Williams for Star Wars and several Spielberg epics -- avidly try to duplicate the master's visceral thrills but always fall short.

No production of the Ring is as sacred to Wagnerians as the one that takes place at their holy see -- Bayreuth (pronounced buy-roit). Wagner founded the music festival first held there in 1876 and designed its theater, the Festspielhaus. He engineered the completion of the theater specifically for this 15 1/2-hour tetralogy about a peculiarly human race of gods and demigods who were ruined by their greed for a cursed treasure of gold. Heads of state -- from mad King Ludwig of Bavaria to the much madder Adolf Hitler -- have made the pilgrimage to this isolated city in northern Bavaria to hear the master as he wanted to be heard.

Of all the opera houses in the world, only Bayreuth can mount a new production of the entire Ring in a single week. This summer the program has attracted more than routine interest because it is the one year in seven when a new Ring cycle debuts. In addition, the conductor for the first time is James Levine, the Metropolitan Opera's powerful artistic director and the leading interpreter of Wagner on the international scene ever since Georg Solti largely retired from theatrical work. Levine's partners are Alfred Kirchner, an experienced European opera and theater director, and set and costume designer Rosalie, the professional name of Gudrun Muller. This is the pair's first time working on the Ring at Bayreuth as well. The result is an expected success for Levine, a muddled start for Kirchner and a deserved round of boos -- as only Festspielhaus crowds can bay them -- for Rosalie.

A Bayreuth audience is unique. Every one of the 1,925 seats is occupied by someone who knows his Wagner and has cast-iron confidence in his opinions. This summer has been the hottest in a century, and the theater is not air conditioned. While the music plays, the crowd sits still and silent; a sneeze brings savage stares. At the curtain call, though, reaction is unbridled. Virtue is rewarded with thunderous stamping on the wooden floors; lapses with lusty booing.

Kirchner and Rosalie set out to present a Ring that ignored the political -- mostly Marxist -- approach that has been popular in Europe over the past two decades. Reacting especially to Patrice Chereau's influential 1976 production, set in the Industrial Revolution, the team rejected polemics in favor of a more classical approach. But they failed to come up with an alternative vision. The modest strength of this Ring is that it leaves the audience with scope to listen and think; the weakness is that the stage is empty of ideas or inspiration.