On Saturday night, Washington National Opera unveiled the first installment, Das Rheingold, of its new staging of Richard Wagner's operatic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Kennedy Center Opera House. A co-production with San Francisco Opera, this "American Ring cycle" is the work of director Francesca Zambello and a team of American artistic collaborators. They have brought together images drawn from the history of the United States to transform Wagner's libretto, based on pre-Christian German legends, into a sort of American mythology. It could be one of the most significant operatic undertakings of the first half of this century, a national version of the greatest series of operas ever conceived, a masterwork for the American century, and it is happening right here in our city at the rate of one opera per year for the next four years, culminating in a complete performance of the cycle in 2009-2010. Naturally, DCist was there.

The Ring is about the lust for power, about a race of powerful beings, the gods of Valhalla, who build their ideal home on a deficit spending plan, emboldened by their sense of privilege. As we learn after 15 hours of glorious music, this elite group's acts of theft and deceit will lead to their destruction, in a fiery consummation of all they built on the backs of others. In 1976, for the 100th anniversary of the Ring cycle, Patrice Chéreau created a controversial (but, I think, ingenious) staging of the operas for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus -- the Bavarian theater that Wagner built according to his precise demands for his works -- in which the story became an allegory for the destruction of the environment as industrial capitalism advanced.

In Zambello's new reading, the gods represent the American wealthy class, a family of corrupt business barons building the American dream, a vast mansion that will be their new home. When we first see the gods in the second scene, Wotan is asleep on a lounge chair on the veranda of what looks like a southern plantation. All the gods are dressed in Tom Wolfe-style white suits or dresses. The only things missing are croquet mallets -- instead of a hammer, Donner wields a T-square, presumably to help with the design of the architectural plans of Valhalla.

The giants, whom the gods call on to build Valhalla, become roughneck laborers, union toughs who make their entrance suspended on a girder beam. The agreed-upon payment for the construction project was Freia, a member of the gods' own family -- a hapless, Blanche Dubois sort of figure. Rather than actually sacrifice one of their own, however, the gods profit from the labor of an enslaved people, the Nibelungs: Wagner's dwarf race is shown as African slave laborers, portrayed mostly by children. (This is at least plausible in the libretto, in that the most important Nibelung is called "Schwarz-Alberich," or Black Alberich.)

They are led by Alberich, sung by the extraordinary baritone Gordon Hawkins (Porgy in the fall production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, which we reviewed in November), who rules over them with a bullwhip and the ring of power, forged from the stolen Rhinegold. We see that theft in the opening scene, when Alberich appears as a simple prospector, panning for gold -- not in the German Rhine, but in the Colorado River of the American West. The Rhinemaidens, a trio of pretty floozies barefoot in white linen dresses, watch helplessly as Alberich walks away with the treasure they were supposed to guard. (The gold is represented by a shiny piece of fabric, which inexplicably the maidens pretend to sew at times.) Through the devious plotting of Loge, a trickster god who tries to help Wotan get out of his predicament, the treasure and the ring Alberich makes from it are stolen again and used to pay off the debt. Here played by Robin Leggate (Captain Vere in the beautiful Billy Budd last season), Loge comes across as a somewhat shady lawyer, gifted at spin, already planning Wotan's defense when he is called before the special prosecutor. The only sense among the gods is represented by the earth goddess Erda, who rises up from the depths to warn Wotan that he must relinquish the ring: Zambello makes her a Native American spirit.

The production works, at least on a symbolic level. If you try to understand why Alberich is tormenting the slave children, and why in the German text (which cannot be changed) these American characters are singing about the Rhine, it falls apart. Acceptance of this sort of staging is possible only if the spectator is not too literal. Musically, the performance was mostly good. Veteran music director Heinz Fricke led the expansive orchestra through a sure if not incendiary rendition. Some parts of Wagner's score seemed to be missing: I counted only two harps in the pit, although the music for the rainbow bridge in the final scene calls for seven of them (one is supposed to be on stage). Only one harpist is listed in the program.

Other instruments sounded unnatural because they were played off stage somewhere and piped in by the sound system. In the scene change music as the story moves down to Nibelheim, Wagner calls for a remarkable percussive effect on 18 tuned anvils, which had a canned sound, as did the cymbal and triangle parts. The program seems to indicate that the brass parts are also reduced from what Wagner calls for in the score: only five horns, not eight; one tuba, not five; three trumpets and perhaps no bass trumpet. There was big sound in most of the loud sections, but not with the sort of mind-crushing power one hopes to hear in Wagner. I am also not exactly sure what happened to the Hammerschlag sound, when Donner strikes the clouds to form the Rainbow Bridge in the final scene.

The singing was often remarkable: Elizabeth Bishop was luscious and endearing as Fricka, Wotan's wife; Elena Zaremba was a bronze prophetess as Erda; Jeffrey Wells (Fafner) and especially John Marcus Bindel (Fasolt) were a brawny menace as the two giants. The Rhinemaidens featured a strong performance from JiYoung Lee (Woglinde), one of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists. Gordon Hawkins was strong as Alberich, although his costume and acting reminded me too much of his performance as Porgy. Robin Leggate's Loge was an oily-voiced shyster, and Robert Hale's Wotan, although good, was perhaps two degrees short of intense. Michael Yeargan's minimalistic sets were overshadowed by what made this production what it was, the costumes designed by Anita Yavich.

Performances of Das Rheingold continue on Thursday (March 30, 7:30 p.m.) and Sunday (April 2, 2 p.m.) and on various dates through April 14. Full-price tickets range between $45 and $290. Reduced-price tickets are available through the Generation O program for students and young professionals, on April 5, 8, and 14. If you are new to Wagner, Das Rheingold lasts about two and a half hours and is performed, according to Wagner's request, without intermission. It is a great introduction to the operas of Wagner, and this version is operatic history in the making.