Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) is the second opera in Richard Wagner's revolutionary tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungen) also known colloquially as the Ring cycle. It is also the cycle's best known, due in no small part to the tremendous popularity of the work's bombastic central motif "Ride of the Valkyries." Die Walküre, within the context of the cycle as a whole, deals with the parents and birth of the cycle's main protagonist, the legendary hero from Norse mythology Siegfried. In 1870, Wagner's Die Walküre premiered in Munich at the request of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and six years later at Wagner's own Bayreuth Festival in a performance of the Ring cycle as a whole. Die Walküre, along with the other three operas it compliments, is generally considered to be a masterpiece of German operatic literature.
