query: instance_of ride of the valkyries
supports: Opera (English plural: "operas"; Italian plural: "opere" ) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing: recitative, a speech-inflected style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung"). The story of "Die Walküre" is based on the Norse mythology told in the "Volsunga Saga" and the "Poetic Edda". In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one in a group of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which live. ""'s best-known excerpt is the "Ride of the Valkyries". Poetic Edda is the modern attribution for an unnamed collection of Old Norse anonymous poems, which is different from the Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all consisting primarily of text from the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript known as the "Codex Regius". The "Codex Regius" is arguably the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century onwards, it has had a powerful influence on later Scandinavian literatures, not merely by the stories it contains but also by the visionary force and dramatic quality of many of the poems. It has also become an inspiring model for many later innovations in poetic meter, particularly in Nordic languages, offering many varied examples of terse, stress-based metrical schemes working without any final rhyme by instead using alliterative devices and strongly-concentrated imagery. Poets who have acknowledged their debt to the Codex Regius include Vilhelm Ekelund, August Strindberg, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, and Karin Boye. Wagner wrote the libretto and music over the course of about twenty-six years, from 1848 to 1874. The four parts that constitute the "Ring" cycle are, in sequence:
  Although individual works of the sequence have occasionally been performed separately, Wagner intended them to be performed in series. The first performance as a cycle opened the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, beginning with "Das Rheingold" on 13 August and ending with "Götterdämmerung" on 17 August. A libretto is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase "", which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. However, as with the rest of the "Ring", Wagner's account diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources. The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle "" and "Parsifal". In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (from Old Norse "valkyrja" "chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. Selecting half of those who die in battle, the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin (the other half go to the goddess Freyja's afterlife field Fólkvangr). There, the deceased warriors become einherjar (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"). When the einherjar are not preparing for the events of Ragnarök, the valkyries bear them mead. Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected to swans or horses. The German Nibelungen  with the corresponding Old Norse form Niflung (Niflungr; pl. Niflungar)  is the name in Germanic and Norse mythology of the royal family or lineage of the Burgundians who settled in the early 5th century at Worms. A polemic is contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about controversial topics. The practice of such argumentation is called "polemics". A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is called a "polemicist". The word is derived , . The `` Ride of the Valkyries '' ( German : Walkürenritt or Ritt der Walküren ) is the popular term for the beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre , the second of the four operas by Richard Wagner that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen . As a separate piece , the `` Ride '' is often heard in a purely instrumental version , which may be as short as three minutes . Together with the `` Bridal Chorus '' from Lohengrin , the Ride of the Valkyries is one of Wagner 's best - known pieces . Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen," or in English, 'The Ring of the Nibelung.' A Gesamtkunstwerk (translated as "total work of art", "ideal work of art", "universal artwork", "synthesis of the arts", "comprehensive artwork", "all-embracing art form" or "total artwork") is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. The term is a German word which has come to be accepted in English as a term in aesthetics. Norse mythology is the body of mythology of the North Germanic people stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities, beings, and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period, including medieval manuscripts, archaeological representations, and folk tradition. Bayreuth is a sizeable town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the early 21st century, it is the capital of Upper Franconia and has a population of 72,576 (2009). It is world-famous for its annual Bayreuth Festival, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Recitative (also known by its Italian name "recitativo") is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition.
candidates: account afterlife anonymous art art form cantata capital collection conductor course die drama extension family festival field final folklore force four goddess group hall idea libretto lineage manuscript mass may music music festival musical musical composition mythology name opera oratorio people performance period person position quality rhetoric rhyme river royal family saga series term text title town tradition war water word work work of art
answer: musical composition