Das Rheingold, WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen,. It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on 13 August 1876. This excerpt, intended for concert performance with contralto voice and orchestra, is from Scene 4 where the goddess of the earth, Erda, warns Wotan to give up the cursed ring he seized from Alberich.