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Das Rheingold is concerned with outlining the leitmotifs (both literary and musical) that appear interwoven throughout the Ring. That is, the motifs laid out in this prelude are all over the rest of the cycle: repeated and transformed via modulations, implosion, time signature changes, etc. All according to the individual situations. Usually lasting under two and a half hours in performance, Das Rheingold can be the most audience-friendly in that respect, and therefore can be a good way to "get into" the Wagner experience.
From a composition perspective, this first opera in the Ring cycle draws heavily from the guidelines that Wagner set forth in his then recent book, Opera and Drama. Being that this method was Wagner's own, it was considered quite innovative at the time. However, though Wagner's music composition skills at this time were of outstanding quality, his adherence to the rules he set by that book would cause him problems, particularly when setting the written text of Das Rheingold to music. The rules dictated that he couldn't edit much of the libretto to fit the music, so he often ended up writing music to suit the text. This resulted in too many long recitative passages during portions of the opera, which were for one exactly what he wanted to avoid, and which he conceivably could have been avoided had he kept the music in mind first. Luckily, Wagner would draw from the rules of his book less and less as writing for the Ring progressed, mostly expunging the influence around the time he started work in the third act of Siegfried.
Despite the aforementioned adherence to the regime laid out in his book, Das Rheingold features some of the finest, most electrifying music ever written. The Act 1 prelude and ensuant Rheinmaiden's song are dazzling, powerful, and gorgeous all at the same time. As the author of "Wagner Without Fear" wrote, few people ever complain about the length of this part of the Ring. The proceeding Valhalla scene is a veritable textbook in applied dynamics, and many of the motifs in that act are quite memorable (i.e. the actual Walhalla motif, the fabulous "beauty/Freia motif" and several others). The parts where Alberich summons the Nibelungen from below is about as Heavy Metal as you'll ever hear, and the character Donner's summoning-of-lightning motif would rock even the most jaded opera goer.
The Rheingold as a symbol has more interpretations than there are aspiring hip hop performers. A Jung-ian interpretive model might assert that the beginning of the opera signifies an individual's first dawning of consciousness, with the gold itself representing the unsullied, childlike part of the psyche. That is, the part of everyone that is capable of seeing things as a child, endlessly fascinated and in love with living. The part that accepts and trusts unconditionally. The Adam and Eve in Eden that we've all had the good fortune to be acquainted with. According to this interpretive model, the Rheingold would be the seed that, in order to bear fruit, must experience a fall.
Alberich the Nibelung, base minded and having no patience with even the basic tenets of civilised conduct, attempts to rape the mermaid guardians of the Rheingold. He covets their free spirited, dancing ways, and when he can't grasp them, resorts to stealing the totem that both represents and perpetuates their happiness. Using the pychological model described above, we could say that the sexual frustration that Alberich experienced spurred him on to steal that part of inward experience that makes things seem so light and happy. Out of hate he forges it into something unnatural, something to control the other people of his rabble ilk. Just as base as the rest of the Nibelungen, Alberich now is king of his Nibelheim realm, simply by dint of having unthinkingly forsaken love itself. The backlash of this sacrifice becomes most obvious when the ring is taken from him, later in the same opera.
Although many listeners will first equate Alberich with what is "bad", the opera ultimately portrays his theft of the rheingold as a felix culpa. The famous Catholic saint and writer Augustine is responsible for first putting the phrase felix culpa into common use. He reasoned that what is typically considered to be a catastrophically unfortunate event in the Old Testament, the Original Sin (or "Fall of Man") was actually a fortunate occurence, and just as much a purposeful Deux aux Machina as the Creation. He asserted that, without the Original Sin, there would have been no need for a Redeemer. To use his idiom, the gates of heaven would never have been thrust all the way open by Christ, had there not been first a serpent beckoning.
The purposeful engineering of creation and destruction is a major theme in the Ring cycle of operas, and there will be more indepth analysis of this motif as this site develops.
Das Rheingold is also the opera where Wotan's personality, as well as his relationships (read: "what passes for relationships") with his wife, friends, and workers are established and expanded upon.
