Opera Die valkure Program Notes, Sheet Music and Recordings

Program Notes & Analysis

The Twelve-Year Interruption

The "Great Pause"

A famous anecdote about Die Walküre concerns not its creation, but its interruption. In 1857, Wagner was two-thirds of the way through composing Act III. He had reached the moment where Brünnhilde puts Sieglinde to sleep. At this exact point, Wagner put down his pen. He was overwhelmed by financial despair, creative frustration, and a burning new idea that would not leave him alone. He would not return to the Ring for twelve years. In this "great pause," he composed two of his other masterpieces: the revolutionary Tristan und Isolde and the massive comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. This break was not a setback; it was a profound evolution. When he finally returned to the Ring, he was a different, more sophisticated composer. The music he wrote for the end of Die Walküre and the rest of the cycle is infused with the complex harmonies and orchestral mastery he had perfected in Tristan.

From Gods to Humans

Die Walküre represents a seismic shift from the world of Das Rheingold. The "preliminary evening" was a political drama populated almost entirely by gods, dwarves, and giants. Die Walküre drops us into the world of mortals. It is a dark, stormy, and deeply human story. The opera opens not with a grand overture, but with a musical tempest—a raging storm in the orchestra that mirrors the psychological and physical exhaustion of the hero, Siegmund. From its first notes, this opera is about human emotion, not just cosmic politics. This is the story that provides the emotional fuel for the entire rest of the cycle.

The Literary and Philosophical Inspirations

Wagner's specific request for this opera was to explore its inspirations. While he drew from a vast well of Germanic myth, his primary source for the story of Siegmund and Sieglinde was the Völsunga Saga, an epic 13th-century Icelandic prose tale. From this, he took the core story of the incestuous twin-siblings, the sword in the tree, and the hero's doom. He also drew heavily from poems in the Poetic Edda, such as those detailing the life of the hero Helgi (a prototype for Siegmund) and the valkyrie Sigrdrífa (Brünnhilde). But his philosophical inspirations were just as important. His reading of Ludwig Feuerbach inspired the opera's focus on redemptive, "natural" human love, free from social convention. Later, his immersion in Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy of will and renunciation would profoundly shape Wotan's character and his ultimate tragic resignation.

The Rise of the Wagnerian Monologue

In Die Walküre, Wagner perfects a new dramatic tool: the extended monologue. He replaces the static, "stop-and-sing" aria of Italian opera (like that of his great rival, Giuseppe Verdi) with long, psychologically complex scenes where a character explores their past, their motivations, and their inner conflicts. The entire opera is built around these. Act I has Siegmund’s Ein Schwert verhieß mir der Vater (A sword my father promised me) and Sieglinde’s narrative. But the opera’s pivot is Wotan’s great monologue in Act II. In this massive, 20-minute scene, he confesses his entire plan, his frustration, and his moral trap to Brünnhilde. He explains how he is bound by his own laws and cannot create the "free hero" he needs. It is one of the most revealing and dramatically essential scenes in the entire Ring.

The Shock of Incestuous Love

The central, shocking event of Act I is the love between the long-lost twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wagner does not treat this as a sordid taboo. Instead, he presents it as the purest, most "natural" form of love possible, a love of "the self" finding its other half. It is a love that exists outside the stale, loveless contracts of society (represented by Sieglinde’s forced marriage to Hunding). Wagner gives them the most passionate, lyrical, and soaring music in the score, culminating in Siegmund's ecstatic Winterstürme (Winter storms) and Sieglinde's reply. This urgent, chromatic, and unresolved music is a clear precursor to the revolutionary love-duet in Tristan und Isolde.

The Leitmotif Matures

If Das Rheingold introduced the leitmotif (leading motive), Die Walküre shows it evolving. The motives are no longer just simple labels. Wagner now combines them, transforms them, and uses them to show complex psychological development. New, powerful motives are introduced: the driving "Storm" motif, the lyrical, rising "Siegmund and Sieglinde's Love" motif, the brutal, descending "Hunding" motif, the famous, blazing "Sword" motif, and, of course, the electrifying "Ride of the Valkyries" theme. The orchestra is a seething, passionate commentator, revealing the characters' hidden thoughts and linking their actions to the past events of Rheingold.

The Birth of the Heldentenor

With the role of Siegmund, Wagner essentially invented a new vocal category: the Heldentenor (heroic tenor). This is not the light, agile tenor of Rossini or Bellini. It is a role that requires immense vocal stamina, a dark, baritonal weight in the voice, and the heroic, clarion power to slice through a massive orchestra. Siegmund’s two desperate, primal cries of "Wälse! Wälse!", where he calls for his divine father (Wotan in disguise) and the promised sword, are the ultimate test for this new kind of operatic hero.

Brünnhilde: The True Heroine Emerges

The opera's title character, Brünnhilde, is Wagner’s true protagonist. She is Wotan's "wish-maiden," the daughter who is a literal extension of his will. Her famous "Ho-jo-to-ho!" war-cry is a sound of pure, unbridled, divine joy and power. Her journey is the opera's central arc. She begins as a dutiful, almost child-like goddess and, through her encounter with human love and suffering, she transforms. She makes a choice—the first "free" choice in the Ring—to defy her father and protect the very mortals he has condemned. She becomes a disobedient, compassionate, and truly human figure.

Wotan's Tragedy: The God in a Trap

The true tragic figure of Die Walküre is Wotan. The confident, scheming politician of Das Rheingold is gone. In his place is a god trapped by his own laws. In Act II, his wife, Fricka (the goddess of marriage), arrives to checkmate him. She points out that his "plan" to use his illegitimate son, Siegmund, is a fraud. She demands he uphold the law and punish the adulterous, incestuous lovers. Wotan, bound by his own contracts, is forced to agree. His great monologue is a confession of this total failure. He is no longer a free agent, but a prisoner of his own power, a theme Wagner borrowed heavily from Schopenhauer.

The Todesverkündigung (Annunciation of Death)

The pivotal scene of the opera is the Todesverkündigung at the end of Act II. This is where Brünnhilde, on Wotan's orders, appears to Siegmund to announce his impending death in battle. She describes the glories of Valhalla. But Siegmund asks one question: Will Sieglinde be there? When Brünnhilde says no, he scoffs at Valhalla and raises his sword to kill his sleeping sister and their unborn child, rather than be separated. This act of total, selfless human love shatters Brünnhilde’s divine certainty. She defies Wotan and promises to protect Siegmund in battle. The music here is new: solemn, fateful, and deeply spiritual, built on somber brass chorales.

The "Ride": Pop Culture and Dramatic Function

The opening of Act III is, without question, the most famous eight minutes of music Wagner ever composed. The "Ride of the Valkyries" has become a cultural shorthand for any "epic" battle, most famously used in the film Apocalypse Now. In the opera, it serves a brilliant dramatic function. It is a scene of wild, barbaric energy, as Brünnhilde’s eight valkyrie sisters gather on a mountaintop, their war-cries (the "Ho-jo-to-ho!") mixing with the storm and the orchestral theme. This whirlwind of sound makes the sudden, terrified arrival of Brünnhilde, who is fleeing, not celebrating, all the more dramatic.

The Legacy of Walküre

The influence of Die Walküre on the future of music cannot be overstated. Its synthesis of a massive orchestra, leitmotif technique, and "endless melody" became the primary model for late-Romanticism. Composers like Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss built their entire symphonic and operatic language on the foundations Wagner laid here. The "love music" of Act I, with its unresolved harmonies, was the gateway to the chromaticism of Tristan und Isolde, which in turn led directly to the breakdown of tonality and the birth of 20th-century modernism under composers like Arnold Schoenberg.

Wotan's Farewell and the Magic Fire Music

The opera's finale is one of the most moving scenes in the repertoire. Wotan, in his rage, has come to punish his disobedient daughter. He sentences her to be stripped of her godhood and left in a magical sleep, a prize for the first man who finds her. Brünnhilde’s defense, War es so schmählich? (Was it so shameful?), is a plea for understanding, explaining that in defying him, she was only carrying out his true, unspoken wish. Wotan's heart breaks. He cannot undo the punishment, but he can soften it. His "Farewell" (Leb' wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind!) is a lullaby of profound love and loss. He kisses her godhood away and summons Loge (the demigod of fire) to encircle her sleeping form in a ring of magic fire, ensuring that only the bravest, freest hero (Siegfried) can ever awaken her. The opera ends in a shimmering, magical, and heartbreaking orchestral blaze.

Opera Story

Act I: Hunding's Hut A furious storm rages. A wounded, exhausted man stumbles into a hut and collapses. Sieglinde, the wife of the hut's owner, Hunding, finds him and gives him water. The two feel an immediate, unspoken connection. Her husband, Hunding, returns. He is a dark, brutal man. He grudgingly offers the stranger hospitality for the night. He asks the stranger’s name. The man replies that his name should be "Wehwalt" (Woeful), as his life has been one of misery, his family lost and his people against him. Hunding suddenly realizes that this stranger is the very man he and his kinsmen were hunting. He tells the man his "hospitality" protects him for the night, but in the morning, they will fight to the death.

Left alone, the stranger (Siegmund) laments his fate. He is unarmed. He recalls his father, Wälse, once promised him a sword in his hour of greatest need. Sieglinde returns, having drugged Hunding. She reveals that on her wedding day, as she was being forced to marry Hunding, a mysterious, one-eyed old man (Wotan) appeared and plunged a sword into the great ash tree in the center of the hut, proclaiming that only the greatest hero could pull it free. No one has succeeded. Siegmund and Sieglinde, in a state of growing rapture, confess their feelings for each other. Siegmund, filled with new strength, pulls the sword (which he names Nothung, or "Needful") from the tree. Sieglinde reveals her name, and he reveals his. They realize they are not just lovers, but long-lost twin siblings, the children of Wälse. Embracing their forbidden love, they flee the hut together.

Act II: A Wild, Rocky Pass Wotan, King of the Gods, stands with his favorite daughter, the valkyrie Brünnhilde. He commands her to ride into battle and protect his son, Siegmund, in his coming fight with Hunding. Brünnhilde joyfully agrees, crying her "Ho-jo-to-ho!" war-cry. However, Fricka, Wotan’s wife and the goddess of marriage, arrives in a fury. She demands justice. Sieglinde has committed adultery, and the twins have committed incest. She demands Wotan uphold the sanctity of marriage and punish Siegmund. Wotan argues, saying he needs Siegmund as a "free hero," but Fricka exposes his entire plan as a fraud. Trapped by his own laws, Wotan swears a terrible oath to Fricka: he will abandon Siegmund, and Brünnhilde must give the victory to Hunding.

Brünnhilde returns and finds Wotan in despair. He tells her his entire, agonizing story: his theft of the gold, the curse, and his trap. He formally orders her to abandon Siegmund and give the victory to Hunding. Brünnhilde is horrified.

Siegmund and Sieglinde appear, fleeing from Hunding. Sieglinde is half-mad with guilt and exhaustion. She collapses. Brünnhilde appears before Siegmund in the Todesverkündigung (Annunciation of Death) scene. She tells him he must die and go to Valhalla. He asks if Sieglinde will be there. When Brünnhilde says no, he scorns Valhalla and prepares to kill Sieglinde to save her from his enemies. Brünnhilde, shattered by his human love, makes a choice: she defies Wotan and promises to protect Siegmund. Hunding’s horn is heard. Siegmund rushes to fight. As Brünnhilde shields him, Wotan appears. "Go back, dwarf!" he cries, and shatters Siegmund's sword with his spear. Hunding stabs the unarmed Siegmund. Wotan, in disgust, kills Hunding with a single gesture. But Brünnhilde has gathered the broken pieces of the sword and fled with Sieglinde. Wotan, in a terrible rage, vows to pursue and punish her.

Act III: The Valkyries' Rock The "Ride of the Valkyries" is heard as Brünnhilde’s eight sisters gather on a mountaintop. Brünnhilde arrives, not in triumph, but in terror, carrying Sieglinde. She begs her sisters to help, but they are too afraid of Wotan. Sieglinde, in despair, wishes to die, but Brünnhilde tells her she carries Siegmund's child: "the world's most glorious hero!" Sieglinde is filled with a new purpose. Brünnhilde gives her the fragments of the sword, Nothung, and tells her to flee to the east, to a forest where Wotan’s power does not reach.

Wotan arrives in a furious storm. He banishes Brünnhilde's sisters and confronts his daughter. As her punishment for disobedience, he sentences her: she will be stripped of her godhood, put into a magical sleep, and will belong to the first man who finds and awakens her. Brünnhilde desperately pleads with her father, explaining that in defying his order, she was actually fulfilling his true wish. Wotan is deeply moved but cannot reverse the sentence. Brünnhilde makes one final request: that he surround her sleeping form with a fire so powerful that only the greatest, freest hero in the world would dare to cross it. Wotan, in a moment of profound love and loss, agrees. He sings his heartbreaking "Farewell," kisses her, and her godhood leaves her. He lays her on the rock and summons Loge, the demigod of fire. A ring of magic fire springs up, encircling the sleeping Brünnhilde as Wotan departs in sorrow.