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Barrie Kosky's production of Die Walküre, The Royal Opera (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

It was nearly 20 months ago that the curtain came down on Das Rheingold, launching The Royal Opera’s new Ring cycle. But it seems like only yesterday, particularly when director Barrie Kosky picks up where he left off, a naked Erda (this time played by 80-year old Ilona Linthwaite) standing on a mini-revolve, hands clasped over her face in despair, just as she had done when Wotan & Co, showered in glitter, entered Valhalla.

We’re in the same studio, a blank (black) canvas for Kosky and set designer Rufus Didwiszus to play with, later populated by the same charred World Ash Tree, logging in another appearance, a giant climbing frame belching fog. Where previously molten gold had seeped from its decayed trunk, Siegmund’s blood now pours.

Erda is Kosky’s little helper, always there to lend a hand. When Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s Siegmund launches into 'Winterstürme', she appears with a basket of spring flowers. As he grasps the handle to draw the sword Nothung, the wall to Hunding’s hut rises to reveal Erda holding the blade. When Marina Prudenskaya’s glamorous Fricka rocks up in a Bentley – complete with ram’s head mascot – it is chauffeured by Erda, clothed here, just as she had served the gods at their Rheingold picnic dressed as a maid. While Brünnhilde explains to Siegmund how valkyries collect the bodies of fallen heroes to take back to defend Valhalla, Erda brings an effigy of him which Siegmund crumbles to dust in his hands. Linthwaite has a beautiful, innocent presence and when she sits in the hollow of a (now upright) tree, a silent observer of Wotan’s long final scene with the errant Brünnhilde, she watches with tender, motherly love.

Christopher Maltman and Marina Prudenskaya in Die Walküre (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Kosky is such a terrific director, sensitive not only to the text but also to the score. He makes you see Wagner’s music. The pregnant pauses in Act 1, when thuggish police cop Hunding threatens Siegmund and intimidates Natalya Romaniw’s Sieglinde, crackle with tension, erupting into violence. When Christopher Maltman’s Wotan narrates his backstory to Elisabet Strid’s boisterous teenager of a Brünnhilde, it is of an embittered CEO who is losing his grip on his empire, his 'das Ende' weighted with resignation. The fight between Hunding, swinging an axe, and Siegmund is thrillingly staged (Philip D’Orléans), Nothung shattering to pieces. After Wotan commands Hunding to kneel before Fricka, his rasped 'Geh!' is enough to send Hunding tumbling, Tosca-style, to his death. Alessandro Carletti’s spotlights and crossbeams here are outstanding.

Act 3 is breathless and thrilling. The famous Ride has the Valkyries – hissing, sweaty, grimy – piling the effigies of dead warriors onto trolleys and the concluding Magic Fire sets the whole tree ablaze, a burst of heat I’ve not felt at the Royal Opera House since the flames of Francesca Zambello’s long-deceased Don Giovanni. Wotan momentarily spins on the revolve before Erda resumes her position, hands to her eyes, awaiting the arrival of Siegfried.

The staging benefits from casting that is relatively fresh rather than the same old troupe of singers who wander Europe from Ring production to Ring production: Romaniw and Strid were making role debuts, de Barbeyrac a stage role debut; Maltman first sang Wotan only two seasons ago (in Naples). Their voices are generally lighter too, which is no bad thing, although there were moments when the orchestra got the better of them.

Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Natalya Romaniw in Die Walküre (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Romaniw, who learnt the role of Sieglinde in just two months to step in for the pregnant Lise Davidsen, was sublime, lavishing her dark soprano tone on the music, rising to a glorious 'O hehrstes Wunder!'. De Barbeyrac, sporting a buzz-cut as a feral Siegmund, sang with intensity, a beautifully phrased 'Winterstürme', tiring a little towards the final minutes of Act 1. Howard’s bass menaced as Hunding. Prudenskaya’s brassy mezzo wrapped itself around Fricka’s appearance, relishing her moral victory over Maltman’s defeated Wotan. With biting German diction, Maltman was terrific; his bass-baritone doesn’t have the juiciest top, but elsewhere he was commanding, including his tender farewell to Brünnhilde. Strid played the favourite daughter well; her soprano is without the metallic blade sometimes required to slice through the orchestra, but that’s less of a problem in Walküre than in the later music dramas. Lee Bisset and Claire Barnett-Jones were the pick of the valkyries.

Sir Antonio Pappano returned for the first time since he left his Music Director post nearly a year ago, doing so with a new title bestowed earlier in the day: Conductor Emeritus (the first in the company’s history). As ever, his Wagner was urgent and dramatic, from whipping up a terrifying storm at the start to milking the big moments in Wotan’s Farewell. And, as ever, the orchestra played like gods for him, fully deserving to share his curtain call by taking their place on stage. Roll on, Siegfried! 

Until 17 May rbo.org.uk