Antonio Pappano conducts a great cast including Stuart Skelton, Emily Magee, John Lundgren and Nina Stemme in the second opera in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Catherine Carby sings the role of Siegrüne.

Die Walküre is the second work and ‘first evening’ of Richard Wagner’s four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, following Das Rheingold. It has become the most performed opera of the cycle, loved and admired for its nuanced and intelligent exploration of complex family entanglements, expressed through music of astonishing power – perhaps nowhere more so than in the glorious music for the incestuous lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde.

Wotan’s voyage of self-discovery and ultimate resignation are at the heart of Keith Warner’s production, created for The Royal Opera in 2005. His great Act II monologue is set in a disastrous ruin of the Valhalla we saw in Das Rheingold – a striking representation of Wotan’s own inner decline and the gods’ incipient twilight. Visual motifs reflect the structure of Wagner’s score, which shows the composer at his most radical and most lyrical.