Nothung! Nothung! neidlicher Stahl!

The “Ride of the Valkyries” is a piece of music that you just know. What some people don’t know is the bigger piece of work that it comes from. There’s a telling moment in Friends where Chandler tells Monica that the tune she’s humming is “Ride of the Valkyries” from Apocalypse Now. He’s right that it does feature in Apocalypse Now but really it’s from the opera Die Walküre, which is the second opera of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle.

Now, from the off we have to make it very clear that this is a situation where we love the art and hate the artist. Wagner was, by almost any definition, a tosser. However, the Ring Cycle is over ten hours of glorious music and song and Die Walküre is the standout part. So, come with us as we take you on a whistle-stop tour of the finest five hours of music ever written (in our humble opinion).

Everything starts in the middle of a thunderstorm, with our protagonist being chased through a forest by unseen assailants. The urgency is clear as the strings build to a crescendo and he bursts through the doors of a small hut seeking sanctuary from the elements and the enemies. The music calms and he collapses next to the hearth, unaware that he is not alone. From out of the shadows, a woman appears wondering aloud who the man is. Almost immediately, it is clear that both characters harbour tragedy deep within themselves and that possibly something connects them.

The two of them begin to tell the tale of their pasts: hers is the loveless marriage to the man of the hut. This continues until the arrival of Hunding, fresh from the hunt, who is more than a little curious to find his wife alone with a stranger, but all he asks is whether she has given the man sustenance. Over supper, the stranger tells his tale of repeated abandonment and isolation. His sister, his father, everyone has been taken from him. No matter how hard he tries to do the right thing, his luck is such that it always goes wrong.

We learn that her name is Sieglinde and, after some punning that only works in German, we learn that he is Siegmund. Together, they were the Wälsungs or the wolf cubs who stalked the forests with their father, Wotan. Hunding ruefully announces that Siegmund is the man that he and his family were hunting but the laws of hospitality are such that he will allow Siegmund to stay the night. He finishes his drink and departs, cursing his luck and summoning his wife to his side.

Alone, Siegmund laments his continued misfortune until Sieglinde returns, announcing that she has drugged Hunding and that she has a story to tell her beloved. On her wedding night a stranger came to the feast and planted a sword in an ash tree that no man could pull out. Now she believes the stranger was her father, their father, and that the sword was for them. As the music swells, Siegmund pulls the sword out and proclaims it to be Nothung. The two embrace and flee into the night.

On a cliff near Valhalla, their father has watched the whole scene unfold and has summoned his favourite Valkyrie, Brünnhilde, to his side. Here we first hear the Valkyrie leitmotif that will become “Ride of the Valkyries”. Wotan commands Brünnhilde to help Siegmund and slay Hunding in the upcoming fight. Brünnhilde agrees and departs just as Wotan’s much-put-upon wife Fricka arrives.

Fricka puts a halt to Wotan’s plans, telling him in no uncertain terms that his oaths, the oaths that ensure the gods’ continued existence, must be kept and that Siegmund must be slain. Wotan tries to find a way out but cannot. Summoning Brünnhilde again to his side he tells her of the planned change and sends her to find the Wälsungs.

She does, but learns that Sieglinde is pregnant, which, after much pleading from Siegmund, convinces her to help. As the thunder cracks, Hunding and Siegmund do battle and Brünnhilde tries to intervene as planned but she is thwarted by an enraged Wotan. She grabs Sieglinde and flees as Wotan lets Siegmund be slain before he in turn kills Hunding in a fit of pique that seems massively unfair.

And it is now, at the start of Act III, that we hear the “Ride of the Valkyries” in full. Brünnhilde’s sister Valkyries are on horseback, singing loudly about the heroes that they have recovered from the battlefields. Hojotoho! they cry, each one pleased with their work until they start to question the absence of Brünnhilde. Eventually, they see her charging towards them at full speed. “Help!” she cries, explaining that she has betrayed their father (yes, yes, Wotan is pretty much everyone’s father), which naturally sends them all into panic. Worse, Wotan’s leitmotif can be heard in the background and quickly getting louder. The sisters make a token effort to help Brünnhilde, but it is clear that they are no protection from Wotan’s ire. The only glimmer of hope is that Sieglinde is able to escape with the unborn Siegfried.

Wotan demands an explanation and is clearly pained by the one that Brünnhilde gives him, recognising that she is right when she tells him that she did what he wanted. Wracked with guilt and tormented by his inescapable destiny, Wotan decides to banish Brünnhilde to a mountain top where she will sleep until someone finds her. Proclaiming this unjust and, worse, dangerous, as any man could climb this mountain, Brünnhilde convinces Wotan to circle her with a ring of fire that only a true hero could cross. He agrees to make this concession and summons Loge to encircle her. Full of remorse, Wotan departs the stage.

The “Ride of the Valkyries” is no more than eight minutes long, but it is the splinter of Die Walküre that is lodged in the collective consciousness. The “Ride of the Valkyries” is wonderful and catchy to boot but if you think it is good we urge, we plead, we pray that you will go and listen to the whole opera. Even better, seek out a performance. We promise you that you will not regret it.

Die Walküre is Taped

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