Wagner’s masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen, has a strong claim to be the most ambitious project in western art. A cycle of four music-dramas, intended to be performed on successive nights and totalling some 16 hours of opera, it combines tragedy with philosophy, drama with psychology, myth with reality. The libretto, derived from Norse legend, Greek mythology and Feuerbachian philosophy, is the composer’s own and is, in and of itself, a work of striking originality. Yet it is in the music that Wagner’s genius shines forth, in a score that conveys the essence of heroism, greed, ambition, jealousy, suffering, lust and love.

Director Barrie Kosky’s first instalment of this epic, Das Rheingold, premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2023, revealed a world in the throes of environmental apocalypse. The World Ash Tree, from which Wotan fashioned his spear and gained the power to rule the world – the original act of usurpation that initiates the entire drama – lay prostrate across the stage, gold glooping from its hollows. Erda, the Earth goddess, was represented by a frail, naked woman.

Kosky’s Die Walküre is similarly bleak. Garish lighting illuminates a minimalist set (designed by Rufus Didwiszus) populated by burnt trees. Erda is here again: spinning, unclothed, on a turntable.

Visually, Act I is underwhelming. Siegmund, sung by the French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac, runs around the stage in an orange hoodie before taking refuge in Hunding’s house, delineated by two doors set within the bark of a giant tree. Hunding, who should be menacing, looks comic in the clothes of a supermarket security officer or US customs official. Why he should pull a gun on Siegmund when the two are later to fight with axe and broadsword is unfathomable.

The love duet between Siegmund and Sieglinde – the separated twins who recognise their kinship prior to uniting in sexual congress – is one of the most ravishing passages in all opera. But in Kosky’s version the impact is marred by the presence of Erda, who bedecks the siblings with flowers, like a naked hula girl.

Thereafter, things improve. Valhalla, lit by steel streetlamps, is starkly utilitarian. Wotan, played with wonderful intensity by Christopher Maltman, is dressed in a dark suit, while Fricka (Marina Prudenskaya) arrives in a classic car, driven by a temporarily clothed Erda. The confrontation between husband and wife over the transgressions of the Wälsung twins (Siegmund and Sieglinde) has all the requisite dramatic tension, and we feel Wotan’s agony as he is forced to accept that his son must die in the forthcoming duel with Hunding. Elisabet Strid’s Brünnhilde is infectiously childish at the start of the act – throwing her whole body into the ‘Hojotoho!’s – but by the end of Wotan’s monologue is already on her way to becoming the mature heroine who will sympathise with the love-struck twins to the extent of defying her father and, at the very end of the cycle, redeem the world by her sacrifice.

Act III commences with the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. This presents a challenge for the modern director, who has to deal with the hackneyed nature of the tune and expectations of spectacular stage effects. Kosky eschews the latter. There are no horses; no aerial displays. The Valkyries, dressed in ragged grey dresses redolent of a concentration camp and spattered with blood, push the bodies of the fallen warriors forward on steel bedframes. Their movement is mesmerising; the music visceral. The final scenes between Wotan and Brünnhilde are deeply moving, the ring of fire with which the former encases the latter at the end of the drama appropriately impressive.

Above all, it is musically that this Walküre succeeds. The cast is exceptionally strong. Stanislas de Barbeyrac, despite suffering from an allergic reaction on the night, sang with strength and lyricism. Soloman Howard’s bass is perfect for Hunding. And Elisabet Strid is convincing as Brünnhilde. The two stand-out performances, however, were the young Welsh-Ukrainian soprano Natalya Romaniw as a deeply affecting Sieglinde and Christopher Maltman as an astonishingly powerful Wotan.

Finally, it is impossible to praise Conductor Laureate Antonio Pappano and the orchestra of the Royal Opera enough. Wagner wanted the orchestra to be a protagonist in the drama equal to the singers; a Greek chorus capable of expressing themes and emotions that words can only hint at. In this musically enthralling new Walküre, the musicians of the Royal Opera, under the direction of Maestro Pappano, fulfil this demanding task with elan.

Die Walküre will be performed at the Royal Opera House in London until 17 May 2025.