Burnt Offering: Barrie Kosky’s post-apocalyptic ‘Ring’ continues to be both relevant and original, as Richard Laing discovers

Ninety minutes before the curtain went up on the blackened, razed stage of the Royal Opera House for Act I of Die Walküre’s opening night, the Guardian’s website published the headline ‘Warmest start to May on record in UK as temperatures prompt wildfire warnings’. That such resonances are now unsurprising demonstrates the relevance of Kosky’s directorial concept, in which everything that is not a living, breathing being (hut, spear, furniture, corpses, trees) – and even some that are (Rheingold’s Nibelungs) – has been ravaged by fire.