Don’t miss your chance to see the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre before it ends on Nov. 30th. The famous “Ride of the Valkyries” music will exhilarate first-time and experienced audiences alike, as will the many powerful and poignant dramatic developments and musical motifs interwoven throughout this epic opera.
The Story
Die Walküre (1870) focuses on the conflict between Wotan, king of the gods, and his mortal son, Siegmund, who has unwittingly fallen in love with his own twin, Sieglinde, the wife of the brutish Hunding. This arouses the wrath of Wotan’s wife, Fricka, the goddess of marriage, and the compassion of Wotan’s daughter, the warrior-maiden Brünnhilde, the favorite of Wotan’s Valkyrie daughters. The turning point of the opera arrives when Brünnhilde disobeys her father by siding with Siegmund in the latter’s fight against Hunding. This production continues Lyric’s new Ring cycle, which began last season with a rousingly successful Das Rheingold. The most popular of the four Ring operas, Die Walküre is often presented as a stand-alone work.
