Die Walkure
by Richard Wagner

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera.

They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original.

"Things like this are written only for people who have good powers of endurance (so really for nobody!)," wrote Wagner about Die Walküre.

Yet, as Geoffrey Skelton points out, the opera has enjoyed a separate popularity and existence from the Ring cycle.

George Gillespie shows just how the string of mythical events was converted into a drama remarkable for its concentrated excitement and fine construction.

Barry Millington introduces the web of motifs in the complex score.

The English version, with Elizabeth Forbes's translation of the verses that Wagner did not eventually set to music but retained as footnotes to his published version, is by acclaimed translator Andrew Porter.