Donald Rich the former chairman of Hampshire County Cricket Club for one was on hand for his 15th Ring cycle and as a scarred

Donald Rich, the former chairman of Hampshire County Cricket Club, for one, was on hand for his 15th Ring cycle and, as a scarred veteran of Bayreuth and Edgbaston, I find myself quite at home here too; since I deal with the cricket elsewhere in these pages, I’ll concentrate on the Ring.One reason the Ring is being performed here is that Melbourne stole Australia’s Formula 1 Grand Prix. Adelaide retaliated by mounting an event that could be seen no where else in the country. Boosters produced figures suggesting that Wagner would bring in more well-heeled international visitors than the other German, Schumacher, and the state government agreed to underwrite a budget that had risen, as all Ring budgets are destined to do, from A$5m to $8.6m (pounds 3.4m).The cycle is not exactly Adelaide’s, because the conductor, director, plus sets and costumes, have been imported from the 1994 cycle at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris, but the principals have been here for up to four months, and the production has put down proper roots in South Australia. Jeffrey Tate, the conductor, has transformed the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra into a first-class Wagnerian ensemble, and the French director, Pierre Strosser, has an idea which I found initially irritating, but was sufficiently engaged by in the third act of Siegfried to wonder if my neighbour had any Kleenex.I have to judge the Adelaide Ring on only one part of the cycle, but that made me think that the audience – 70 per cent from outside South Australia – had not made a wasted trip. Besides, the Ring has become so expensive that whole cycles are becoming rare. The English National Opera has been trying to put one on since 1983. (Thus we have no David Pountney version, which is a shame.)Strosser, who was born in Alsace and has directed hardly any opera outside France, also designed the minimalist set.

The stage slopes gently from right to left, and is divided laterally by a high wall. This rises, apparently, to become Valhalla in Rheingold, and sinks into the floor to create the mountain-top in Siegfried; billowing red silk creates the circle of fire through which Siegfried walks. Props are scarce; in Siegfried we got four rocks, a forge, a tree, a sphere and an old park bench. The backdrop had been painted to show a landscape strongly reminiscent, as chance would have it, of Australia.Strosser’s trick – his conception, if you prefer – is to reduce the Ring to a human scale. There are no gods, no dragons; the giant Fafner emerges from his cave in human form; Wotan’s spear is a cane and he wears a homburg. Erda sits on the park bench looking a bit like a bag lady.Strosser concentrates entirely on the relationships in the extended Wotan family, and this deliberately non-expressionist style produces a masterstroke.

One of the great dramatic moments of the Ring is when Siegfried breaks Wotan’s spear with his magical sword. The traditional interpretation is that Wotan’s authority has been destroyed, and that he trudges away, humiliated. But Strosser has Wotan caress Siegfried’s cheek before he leaves It is a mark of love Siegfried has been tested He passes, and receives Wotan’s blessing. It works.The translation actively assists Strosser’s conception. A note in the excellent programme reveals that Wagner told an admirer after the first performance of Lohengrin in Melbourne in 1877 that Australians should endeavour to have his works produced in English – to achieve greater understanding. (Vindication for the ENO from the Master himself.) Brian Fitzgerald’s surtitles aid interpretation as well as understanding by concentrating on the family, as in the moment when Siegfried wishes his mother were around to tell him how to behave towards his desirable Aunty Brunnhilde whom he had just woken with a kiss.