"The Ride Of The Valkyries" is the popular term for the prelude to Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by German composer Richard Wagner that comprise The Ring of the Nibelungs (German Der Ring des Nibelungen). The Ring of the Nibelungs is a sequence of four musical dramas based on the Norse saga, which concerns the turbulent family history of a race of gods and their pursuit of a magical golden ring. It began as a single opera focusing on the death of Siegfried but grew into a vast cycle of four operas. Wagner's intention for The Ring was to create a "Gesamtkunstwerk," a total work of art that fuses elements of music, drama, poetry, and stagecraft into an indivisible whole. It was a more ambitious piece of musical theater than any other devised up to that time and it arguably remains the most influential contribution by any composer to opera.