What is your favorite opera and why?

[Aristus]

55. Wagner's "Das Rheingold".

I know it's just supposed to be a preliminary to the main Ring operas of "Die Walkure", "Siegfried", and "Gotterdammerung". But it's significant for introducing many of the musical motifs that will grow and develop throughout the four-opera cycle.

The impossibly grand and majestic Valhalla theme.

The mournful "Renunciation Of Love" motif. Retired Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins calls it the "Embrace Of Destiny" motif. It's first introduced by Rhinemaiden Wellgunde when singing about the renunciation of love, the condition by which someone can forge an all-powerful Ring from the Rhine gold. But a number of other characters later in the drama sing the theme in situations not related to the renunciation of love.

That brief, heartbreaking moment when Fasolt sings of having the Goddess of Love, Freia, in his household; accompanied sweetly by the oboe, it reveals the tender heart beneath the rough exterior, and makes the audience sympathize with him, in opposition to his evil brother, Fafner.

The sinister, atmospheric hammering of the Nibelungs on their anvils, a reminder that the once carefree metalsmiths have been enslaved by Alberich and his Ring of Power.

There's a lot of incredible stuff packed into two and a half hours.