After the light comedy of The Marriage of Figaro, Target Margin's all-opera theatre season is ready for something a little meatier — the 18-hour marathon that is Richard Wagner's Ring cycle. The Ring: the Operatic Era Laboratory, a contemporary and much shorter look at the four operas that make up the Ring, plays Jan. 23-Feb. 10 at the Flamboyan Theatre at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in Manhattan.

Five works make up the evening, revisiting the characters of Siegfried, Brunhilde and Wotan. The Rattazzi Brothers have adapted the entire Ring in their high-tech, multi-media Ring Cycle. Jyana S. Gregory directs Lucas Hnath's staging of Siegfried's quest for the Ring in Siegfried's Nerve. Using industrial-synth-pop, Ethan Hein has updated Siegfried and his wife's plumet into excess in Uber. Yuri Skujins directs Boca, in which the Rhinemadiens and the gods ponder love, power and tasteless architecture. Finally, the Aaron Tugendhaft, Susanna Gellert and Chloe Johnston comedy VALKYRIE or: What Happens When a Good-Natured Goddess Goes Bad looks at Brunhilde, the woman warrior who falls for the heroic Siegfried.

The Ring: the Operatic Era Laboratory will also feature special curtain raisers such as the Emma Griffin-directed portrayal of the last seven minutes of Gotterdammerung, including the destruction of the gods' home at Valhalla. There will also be seperate performances of Friedrich Hebbel's The Revenge of Kreimhild and Charles Ludlam's Der Ring Gott Fablonjet.

Tickets are $5. The Flamboyan Theatre at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center is located at 107 Suffolk Street. For reservations, call (212) 358-3657. Target Margin Theatre is on the web at http://www.targetmargin.org.

— By Christine Ehren