Wagner's DIE WALKURE to be Broadcast Live To UK Cinemas

Die Walküre, the second opera in Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen will be brought to life in cinemas around the world on Sunday 28 October. Broadcast live from the Royal Opera House in London's world-famous Covent Garden, the opera features some of Wagner's most beautiful and intense music, including Siegmund's tender 'Spring Song' and the fiery 'Ride of the Valkyries'.

2018 is the ten-year anniversary of the Royal Opera House going live into cinemas across the UK and the globe. Die Walküre will feature a stellar cast including Australian tenor Stuart Skelton (Siegmund) and John Lundgren (Wotan), who both make their Royal Opera debuts, American soprano Emily Magee (Sieglinde) and award winning Swedish soprano Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde). Die Walküre will be conducted by Antonio Pappano Music Director of The Royal Opera House.

This is a story of love, loss and family entanglements. Years before the opera opens, Wotan, ruler of the gods, disguised himself as a mortal man and had twins with a mortal woman who gave birth to twins Siegmund and Sieglinde who were separated during their childhood. Wotan hopes that he can use his son Siegmund to retrieve a gold ring of ultimate power, which threatens to bring about the Gods' destruction. He engineers a meeting between Siegmund and Sieglinde, now unhappily married to Hunding. Initially unaware of each other's identity, the siblings fall in love. Wotan intends to protect his incestuous children from Hunding's wrath, but his wife Fricka, guardian of marriage, forbids him to do this. However, Wotan's daughter Brünnhilde, who is moved by Siegmund's devotion to Sieglinde, intervenes in an attempt to save the couple. Wotan kills Siegmund, fulfilling his promise to Fricka. Brünnhilde manages to save Sieglinde, now pregnant with Siegmund's child but cannot escape punishment from Wotan, who condemns her to mortality and marriage. However, Wotan's love for his daughter leads him to grant her a final request: that she be left to sleep encircled by magical fire, so that only a hero can find and wake her.

The Royal Opera House cinema broadcasts offer audiences an equivalent to the best seat in the house, with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and incredibly detailed close-ups of performers. Audiences are never far from a performance at the Royal Opera House, with most UK viewers within 30 miles of a cinema screening. In 2017/18 more than one million people globally saw a production of world-class opera or ballet from the Royal Opera House, watching at one of more than 1,500 cinemas in 51 countries.

Die Walküre starts at 5pm in UK cinemas and lasts approximately five hours. The opera will be sung in German with English subtitles. Following Die Walküre, the next production in the Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season is The Royal Ballet's La Bayadère on Tuesday 13 November 2018.

The Royal Opera's Die Walküre will be shown in UK cinemas on Sunday 28 October 2018. Die Walküre will also be broadcast in cinemas around the world. Further details on dates and venues are available here: https://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas