It started as a single idea, under the working title of Siegfried's Death, and ended as an epic four-opera cycle, "Der Ring des Nibelungen." Inspired by the great Nordic and Germanic sagas, Richard Wagner created a unique statement of the interplay between love and power---a struggle he movingly expressed through recurrent motifs of yearning and loss. Die Walküre, the second opera in the series, remains the most popular and frequently performed of the mighty Ring Cycle works.