Finally! Twice-torpedoed by the pandemic, the Brisbane “Ring” is back on the boards. The director and production designer is the Chinese-born New Yorker Chen Shi-Zheng, originally trained in the mandarin artifice of traditional Chinese opera but now a nimble, innovative theater artist in demand around the world. His “Ring” promises cutting-edge digital sorcery in the service of lucid, agenda-free storytelling. As you know, the narrative concerns nothing less than the fate of the universe, involving magic gold, dragons, trickster Norse gods, power-hungry dwarves, and more. (Snow White, where art thou?) The cast member who most intrigues us is Anna-Louise Cole, performing in the first two four-evening cycles as the visionary war bride Sieglinde, who is reunited with her long-lost twin brother just long enough to conceive the hero Siegfried. In the the third and final cycle, Cole steps out as the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Sieglinde’s half-sister and eventually her daughter-in-law. Sieglinde is an iconic role, but Brünnhilde’s is more so—she appears in three operas to Sieglinde’s one, and gets to ring down the curtain on the cycle (no pun intended) with the stupendous Immolation Scene. Daniel Sumegi appears as Wotan, father of both heroines and chieftain of the gods. Stefan Vinke is Siegfried, who falls under a wicked spell, betrays Brünnhilde, and pays the price. As does she. Bone up if you know what’s good for you! Philippe Auguin conducts. For the record, Cole’s alternates are Lise Lindstrom (Brünnhilde, Cycles 1 and 2), and Olivia Cranwell (Sieglinde, Cycle 3). —Matthew Gurewitsch