One of the last things you see in Tim Albery's production of Götterdämmerung is a procession of people bringing the images of their gods to be burnt in Siegfried's funeral pyre. This initially might seem to fly in the face of Wagner's intentions of having Valhalla itself burn in the opera's final conflagration, but it also reminds us of the ideological backbone of the entire Ring - namely that the gods and their laws must die if humanity is to be free.

Wagner gives us little indication as to what that freedom entails. Albery shockingly follows the image with the flash of a mushroom cloud on a front cloth. Ultimate freedom entails both ultimate responsibility and the potential for infinite destruction. Few directors have quite so forcefully unravelled the opera's ideological implications.

This is superbly integrated music theatre, though it remains hampered by Graham Sanders' Siegfried. In Act I, as the innocent walking unwittingly into corruption he strikes something like vocal and dramatic form. In Act II, however, faced with Siegfried's only top C, he loses both voice and nerve, and fudges the passage alarmingly.

Elsewhere, however, we find performances of genius. Elizabeth Byrne's Brünnhilde is impassioned, tireless and finally overwhelming in the immolation scene. Mats Almgren's Hagen exudes charismatic evil. Richard Armstrong's conducting is urgent and inexorable, as is the Scottish Opera Orchestra's playing. Despite its flaws, this is a Ring that, above all, redefines the work for our times, and its total impact is shattering.