1. In 2003, he initiated and conducted at the Mariinsky Theatre the first complete cycle of Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung to be staged in Russia for over 90 years.

2. Brunhild in the Nibelungenlied, the wife of Gunther, who instigated the murder of Siegfried.In the Norse versions she is Brynhild, a Valkyrie whom Sigurd (the counterpart of Siegfried) wins by penetrating the wall of fire behind which she lies in an enchanted sleep; his death comes about because he is later tricked into forgetting her and marrying the Nibelung princess Gudrun.

3. Brunhild, also spelled Brynhild, Brunhilda, Brunhilde, or Brünhild, a beautiful Amazon-like princess in ancient Germanic heroic literature, known originally from Old Norse sources (the Edda poems and the Vǫlsunga saga) and from the Nibelungenlied in German and more recently from Richard Wagner’s late 19th-century opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (“The Ring of the Nibelung”), adapted