RICHARD WAGNER (1813 - 1883)

 

Gotterdammerung

Der Ring des Nibelungen

 

Brünnhilde - Astrid Varnay

Siegfried - Wolfgang Windgassen

Gunther - Hermann Uhde

Waltraute - Maria von Ilosvay

Alberich - Gustav Neidlinger

Hagen - Josef Greindl

Gutrune - Gré Brouwenstijn

Woglinde - Jutta Vulpius

Wellgunde - Elisabeth Schärtel

Floßhilde - Maria Graf

Erste Norn - Maria von Ilosvay

Zweite Norn - Georgine von Milinkovicˇ

Dritte Norn - Mina Bolotine

 

Chor & Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele / Joseph Keilberth

Chorus master Wilhelm Pitz

 

Recorded Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Thursday 28 July 1955

 

This is the last opera to be released on Testament of the first-ever stereo recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. With Hans Hotter, Astrid Varnay and Wolfgang Windgassen, Keilberth’s recordings, made at the 1955 Bayreuth Festival, has fast become the definitive Ring. In January Testament released Siegfried (SBT41392); then in May came Die Walküre (SBT41391) and in September Das Rheingold (SBT21390) followed.

 

Thrillingly conducted by Joseph Keilberth (called by the late Astrid Varnay “a conductor with so much love, who was always there for you”), the cycle provides the opportunity to hear complete for the first time on commercial release the definitive performances of Hans Hotter (Wotan/Wanderer), Astrid Varnay (Brünnhilde), Ramon Vinay (Siegmund), Josef Greindl (Hagen) and Paul Kuen (Mime), in addition to the much-loved Siegfried of Wolfgang Windgassen, here heard in his prime.

 

These ‘live’ Bayreuth performances were taped by a Decca team led by Peter Andry and including the noted engineers Kenneth Wilkinson and Roy Wallace, with Gordon Parry as assistant. Using a new sixchannel mixer designed by Wallace, the team made both stereo and mono recordings of each opera. Three microphones were placed in the sunken orchestra pit and three hung from a lighting bridge about 20 feet above the stage. “This was brilliant; it worked beautifully”, remembers Wallace. The company prepared for an expected release, but John Culshaw, recently returned to Decca, vetoed the project. He disliked ‘live’ recordings and already had plans for a studio Ring with Solti which began four years later. Decca’s recording vividly captures in wonderful stereo sound the unique acoustic and stage/pit balance of the Bayreuth Festival theatre with its sunken orchestra, in addition to preserving the leading singers from a Wagnerian golden age in ‘live’ performance.

 

The two operas already released have received rave reviews and this ‘Ring’ cycle is being hailed as ‘definitive’. Götterdämmerung will follow later this year. Keilberth’s Bayreuth recording of Der fliegende Holländer (SBT21384) is already available.

 

Testament 4cds SBT41393