The Valkyrie
| Die Walküre | |
|---|---|
| Music drama by Richard Wagner | |
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| Translation | The Valkyrie |
| Librettist | the composer |
| Language | German |
| Premiere | 26 June 1870 Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich |
Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is the second of the four works that form Wagner's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).
The story of Die Walküre is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda. In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one in a group of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which live. Die Walküre's best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries".
It received its premiere at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich on 26 June 1870. Wagner originally intended the work to be premiered as part of the entire cycle, but was forced to allow the performance at the insistence of his patron King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was first presented as part of the complete cycle on 14 August 1876 at Wagner's Bayreuth Festival. The work made its United States premiere at the Academy of Music in New York on 2 April 1877.
Although Die Walküre is the second of the Ring operas, it was the third in order of conception. Wagner worked backwards from planning an opera about Siegfried's death, then deciding he needed another opera to tell of Siegfried's youth, then deciding he needed to tell the tale of Siegfried's conception and of Brünnhilde's attempts to save Siegfried's parents, and finally deciding he also needed a prelude that told of the original theft of the Rheingold and the creation of the ring.
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