TORONTO - We keep coming back to Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in part because there are so many ways to interpret this vast operatic epic of beginnings and endings, of family dysfunction, of money, power and sex. And no composer's operas have been more imaginatively - and sometimes perversely - staged.

A century and a quarter after the Ring had its first complete staging at Wagner's new theater in Bayreuth, Germany, Canada inaugurated its first complete, homegrown Ring cycle Sept. 12-17 in Toronto's brand-new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

The stars of the Canadian Opera Company's Ring were clearly conductor Richard Bradshaw, who's also COC's general director, and the superb orchestra he has cultivated over 18 years. This was the most elegantly delineated and caringly scaled orchestral playing I've ever heard in a Ring, quieter stretches delicately tinted, climaxes thrilling blazes of brass. Again and again, Mr. Bradshaw and the orchestra got the loudest applause and roars of "Bravo," and deservedly so.

The Ring calls for a large cast of singers with big - and sometimes tireless - voices. The COC vocalism ranged from stirring to merely serviceable, but at least, unlike too many Rings, there were no vocal horrors.

One's free to disregard Wagner's elaborate stage directions, to update tales from Nordic mythology to 19th-century capitalist oppression or futurist abstraction. But the actual words the four operas' characters sing bristle with physical imagery that directors ignore at the drama's peril. Water and fire, sword and spear, giant and dwarf: on some level, a staging of the Ring has to come to terms with them.

Along with Mr. Bradshaw, production designer Michael Levine and lighting designer David Finn were the Toronto cycle's unifying elements. This made for some telling visual overlaps among the operas, but Mr. Levine's debut as a stage director, in Das Rheingold, wasn't auspicious.

The giants were just men hoisted on their workers' shoulders. Valhalla was illustrated as a model of a pompous neoclassical complex, assembled then deconstructed by scurrying stagehands. Dress was mid-19th-century: black bustled dresses for the women, frock coats for the gods.

For Die Walküre, filmmaker Atom Egoyan gave us what looked like the aftermath of an earthquake. Grids of girders and industrial lights that had framed Das Rheingold had collapsed in a tangled mess. A chopped-off tree trunk stood in the middle of a ripped-up patio.

Wotan made a less-than-grand entrance (presumably an accident) by tripping and falling on the treacherous terrain. Siegmund and Sieglinde dozed on the ground in post-coital oblivion until (heavy-handed prophecy) the god grabbed a shovel, dug a hole and rolled them in. The magic fire guarding Brünnhilde was a circle of flares implanted by her fellow Valkyries.

Curiouser and curiouser this Ring got. Next was another filmmaker, François Girard (Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, The Red Violin), having his way with Siegfried.

For two of the three acts, the tree stump was crowned with a swirl of detritus - assorted bodies, some of which came to life, fragments of Valhalla - supposed to represent Siegfried's mind. With virtually everyone in white pajamas, Mr. Girard proclaimed (in the program book) that every other character represents "a projection of Siegfried that he either needs to integrate into himself or conquer." For the last act, there was no scenery, just Siegfried and Brünnhilde spotlit on a rumpled white sheet.

What we didn't get were the tangible things the characters sing about. For the sword-forging scene, Siegfried merely hovered over arms waving out of a red-lit hole in the floor. An orange-lit circle of pajama-clad supernumeraries undulated to represent the fire protecting Brünnhilde. For Fafner -as-dragon we got a human pyramid. Siegfried's bear was a bearded, paunchy man with very hairy arms and legs - a gay inside joke, perhaps?

Happily, the Toronto Ring pulled itself together for a strong, memorable Götterdämmerung, thanks to British director Tim Albery. Here, at last, was a director who obviously knew and respected the opera, and Mr. Finn's lighting was its most telling.

The Norns wove a cable beneath drooping, sinister power lines. The Gibichungs worked their wiles in a sterile modern office and oversize boardroom, with sleek gray-and-red furnishings. Brünnhilde was guarded by an arc of glowing red stoplights. The Rhine Maidens weren't above stripping to lingerie to seduce Siegfried to give up the fatal ring.

The purging fire was merely suggested by red lights. But there was the loveliest final touch as the stage full of supernumeraries turned to face a sunrise flowing from the upstage horizon. With Wagner's sublime "glorification of Brünnhilde" motif soaring sweetly from the orchestra's violins, it was a deeply moving moment long to be remembered.

Booked in the daunting role of top-god Wotan, English bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka withdrew barely a week and a half before opening night with diabetic exhaustion. Understudy John Fanning was a merely passable substitute in Das Rheingold; Peteris Eglitis supplied rich tone and expressive delivery in Die Walküre and Siegfried, but far too little oomph for the big moments.

As Brünnhilde, Susan Bullock wasn't the usual screamer, but there was something anonymous and unengaging about her singing. Siegfried, the most daunting of the roles, usually is portrayed by tenors in vocal tatters. Christian Franz hadn't the heroic voice of dreams, but his richly colored quieter singing suggested a supersized Peter Pears (Benjamin Britten's vocal muse), and his sinewy fortissimo rode indefatigably over the loudest orchestration.

The most stirring vocalism came from Adrianne Pieczonka's Sieglinde and Clifton Forbis' Siegmund. Richard Paul Fink, Robert Künzli and Richard Ens were suitably scurvy as, respectively, Alberich, Mime and Hunding. Mr. Fanning's Gunther and Joni Henson's Gutrune were serviceable. Mats Almgren's Hagen impressed other listeners, but from two different seats I found him all midrange density, with little to show above or below. The Rhine Maidens, Valkyries and Norns were superb.

The Canadian Opera Company presents a final Ring cycle Tuesday through Oct. 1 at Toronto's Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Cycle subscriptions $300 to $1,700 (Canadian dollars). 1-800-250-4653, www.ringcycle.ca.

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