Wagner: Der Ring Des Nibel (2CD)

2013 sees a series of Wagner reissues on Eloquence from complete operas and highlights to Wagner singer portraits and even an audiobook!

Reissued for the Wagner Year are highlights from Herbert von Karajan’s mighty ‘Ring’ cycle. The disc includes extended highlights from the four ‘Ring’ operas and allows us to sample Karajan’s choice of different singers for the same character in different operas – Fischer-Dieskau’s Wotan in Das Rheingold and Thomas Stewart’s in Siegfried. There are notes on the music as well as an essay by Karajan expert Richard Osborne on the background to Karajan’s Ring, as well as a photo gallery of many of the key singers. There were and will always be many competitive Ring cycles on the market, but, as Martin Baker sums up ‘[Karajan] creates […] a transparent aural stage where the light and shade in the music has an almost forensic quality. Musically the Karajan Ring cycle has a visceral intensity that, especially in the subterranean scenes, hints at the sinister mythologies that informed Germany’s recent history and is probably closer to the heart of the narrative’s darkness than any other recording.’

TRACK LIST

WAGNER
Der Ring des Nibelungen (Highlights) 
CD 1
Das Rheingold    
Die Walküre    
CD 2
Siegfried    
Götterdämmerung     

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau / Thomas Stewart / Josephine Veasey / Gundula Janowitz 
Jon Vickers / Jess Thomas / Helga Dernesch
Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan
Executive producer: Otto Gerdes 
Recording producer: Hans Weber
Recording engineer: Günter Hermanns
Recording location: Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany, 6–15 December 1967 (Rheingold), 1–13 September and 10–30 December 1966 (Walküre), 2–12 December 1968 and 3 February 1969 (Siegfried), 13–23 October 1969, 29 December 1969 and 2–6 January 1970 (Götterdämmerung)