“I've captured a terrific storm of elements and of hearts which gradually calms to Brünnhilde's magic sleep,” Wagner on the score of Die Walküre, in a letter to Ferenc Liszt.
Following on the heels of the introductory Das Rheingold, this opera about the tragic love between two of Wotan's children constitutes the start of the more tightly drawn dramatic trilogy. Once again, the laws of the gods clash: can paternal love save a lad who has violated the sanctity of marriage? And what punishments await the woman who protects the as-yet-unborn and innocent hero?