When he took the job as general and artistic director of the Atlanta Opera in 2013, Tomer Zvulun knew what he was working toward. The small regional opera house had a lot of growing up to do, but Zvulun’s vision was clear: Atlanta needed “Das Rheingold.”

The opening chapters in Richard Wagner’s titanic, four-opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” cycle would have been too much — logistically, musically, financially — for the Atlanta Opera of 2013. But Zvulun had come up in the Seattle Opera. Under General Director Speight Jenkins, that company was famous for producing an entire cycle of Wagner’s “Ring” operas every four years. Zvulun knew what it would take. He was convinced that bringing one of the pinnacles of the opera world to Atlanta was possible — eventually.

“The first thing I shared with my board is the idea of doing a ‘Rheingold’ at some point,” Zvulun said, recalling his first days in Atlanta.

Now, a decade later, Zvulun’s original production of “Das Rheingold” comes to the Atlanta Opera for four performances starting April 29.

The story centers on the dwarf Alberich (Zachary Nelson) who comes across three Rheinmaidens guarding the river’s gold. After unsuccessfully flirting with them — they consider him an ugly, pitiful person — he soon learns that he can win the gold and forge a powerful ring if he simply renounces love. Down in the dumps after striking out with the maidens, he willingly leaves love behind. The gold, which is fashioned into a ring, is now his — as is all the power in the world.

The god of fire, Loge (Richard Cox), soon suggests that Wotan (Wagner expert Greer Grimsley) gift the giants Fasolt and Fafner with Alberich’s ring as payment for creating the fortress, Valhalla. Wotan and Loge set off to find Alberich and the ring, coming across Alberich’s brother, Mime (Julius Ahn). Mime has a magical helmet; once you put it on, you become a shapeshifter, taking any form imagined. After some goading, Alberich uses the helmet to turn himself into a toad. When the gods capture his toad form, they win the ring.

Credit: Scott Suchman

Credit: Scott Suchman

Upon return, Wotan gives the giants Rheingold instead of the ring, which he wants for himself. But after the goddess of the Earth, Erda (Ronnita Miller), warns him that the ring will forever doom the wearer, he reluctantly relinquishes the ring to the giants. Fafner then kills his brother over the ring. In the end, the Rheinmaidens cry over their lost gold and the gods start the journey to their new home. At two-and-a-half hours long, “Das Rheingold” is just the beginning of the four-opera saga.

Zvulun originally programmed “Das Rheingold” to close out the Atlanta Opera’s 2020 season. When the pandemic shutdown the performance world in March 2020, plans changed.

“We had to postpone it for three years, but it was kind of like par for the course at that point,” he said, adding that there are so many obstacles to getting a “Ring” production off the ground. “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

The delay may have done the opera company some good. The original plan was to run “Das Rheingold” in Atlanta and rent the production to the Dallas Opera in February 2023. Even without the Atlanta staging, the Dallas shows went off without a hitch earlier this year. So while this is an original production born of the Atlanta Opera, Dallas had the premiere.

Many of Zvulun productions, both on the mainstage and part of the smaller Discoveries series, make use of familiar Atlanta Opera names. “Rheingold” is no exception. But in addition to scoring a leading Wagnerian bass baritone in Grimsley, Zvulun is also directing a number of singers in Atlanta for the first time.

Longtime Wagnerite Zachary Nelson is appearing in his Atlanta Opera debut as Alberich. It’s also his first time portraying the character, though he performed as Donner in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2016 production. Nelson relishes the bad-guy nature of Alberich; then again, Alberich’s malevolent nature doesn’t really stand out in a story filled with evil doings.

“I like to look at it as — they’re all bad guys. They’re all corrupted by something,” Nelson said.

Credit: Scott Suchman

Nelson became fascinated with “Das Rheingold” and the entire cycle of Wagner operas while home for Christmas during his freshman year of college. His mom gave him a DVD collection of the Metropolitan Opera’s Otto Schenk production. The singer was already deep into Verdi, Puccini and Mozart. But this was something unusual.

“There’s just a switch that kind of flipped that I was like, ‘Wow. This is kind of different — something really incredible and special. I should probably listen to more of this,’” he said. “We watched it every day.”

The story of the “Ring” is by now well-trodden territory. Reach for almost any fantasy text — from “Lord of the Rings” to “Game of Thrones,” even the Marvel movies — and you’ll see at least some of the themes and ideas that characters wrestle with in “Rheingold.” That doesn’t mean the themes are easy to parse. The convoluted storyline and the operatic and musical demands can make getting into the “Ring” cycle a challenge.

“I don’t think anyone’s birthed from the womb as a Wagner fan. It takes a minute because it’s big music and the stories are quite heavy,” Nelson said.

Rehearsals for the Atlanta Opera production started in earnest during the first week of April, but Nelson had already spent hours working with his part to decipher the meaning of the text. He’ll be singing in German, but through experience he knows that to truly perform an opera well, he needed to first translate the text and really digest the words.

“You’re just making sounds if you don’t know what the words mean,” he said.

Even though Nelson has never yet performed in Atlanta, singers he talks with “are always glowing about it,” he says. He’s already booked to return for a production next year.

As for future Wagner productions, the second of the “Ring” operas, “Die Walkure,” has been penciled in for next season, but Zvulun is hesitant to confirm more at this juncture. He saw the excitement for “Rheingold” in Dallas, not to mention successful ticket sales, and he believes Atlanta’s “Rheingold” will do well. But he relies on audience data when deciding what shows to produce. Early returns suggest Wagner will succeed.

“This is one of the best-selling shows we’ve ever done,” Zvulun said. “It’s more likely than it was a year ago that we will do the third and fourth installments, but I’m still not going to commit to it until we know Atlanta is ready.”