Wagner, "Ride of the Valkyries"

Composition of the tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung", a cycle of four epic operas based on episodes of Germanic mythology, took Richard Wagner no less than twenty-six years. The work of a lifetime was begun in Dresden, in 1848, when the author was flirting with anarchism, and completed in 1874 in the peace and serenity of Wahnfried, the neoclassical villa he had built in Bayreuth, kindly sponsored by his most conspicuous admirer, the esoteric young King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

"The Valkyrie", composed between 1854 and 1856, is the second opera in the cycle. (It is preceded by the introductory drama The Rheingold, and is followed by Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods.) And the famous "Ride of the Valkyries" is the piece that opens the third act, accompanying the Valkyries (daughters of the god Wotan, beautiful warriors, and virgins as well) who, singing their war cry, are preparing to carry out the transfer of the fallen combatants to Walhalla, a majestic hall where the unfortunate heroes end up, hand in hand with the aforementioned virgin warriors.

The so-called The Ride... is the name by which the piece has become popular, and it is so called in its purely instrumental performances, which are usually half the length of the operatic version. But Wagner never titled any section or part of The Valkyrie by that name. So much so, that in her diary, Cosima Wagner registers her annoyance at the letters she received requesting separate performances of The Ride. "I don't know what they are talking about," she wrote.

Disregarding its use in German war newsreels, accompanying Luftwaffe bombing scenes, the piece was enthroned in popular culture through Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now (1979), this time accompanying the helicopter attack on a Vietnamese village, as part of the plot. In both cases, the work ended up saluting defeat.

The performance presented here (with the voices of the eight Valkyries) was part of the performance of the complete cycle of the tetralogy, in 2010 and 2012, in a gigantic production by the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. It lasts little more than 6 minutes.