SORRY - SOLD OUT
Decca Testament - SBTLP51391 - 180 gram Vinyl
Deluxe Box Set - 28 Page Booklet - Pure Analogue Audiophile Mastering
THE LOST RING CYCLE – NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER
The most coveted performance of Wagner's legendary epic Ring Cycle was in fact recorded by Decca in Stereo live at the 1955 Bayreuth Festival. But until now, that lost performance has remained but a memory.
Thrillingly conducted by Joseph Keilberth (called by 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, Astrid Varnay, Ramon Vinay, Josef Greindl and Paul Kuen, 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 six-channel 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 were hanged 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.
If lacking the breathtaking incandescence and dramatic sweep of the Siegfried released in March, this second instalment of the 1955 “Decca” Ring from Bayreuth, issued for the first time by Testament, is nonetheless a must-have acquisition for all serious Wagnerians. Here, particularly in the awakening romance of the Wälsung twins — the darkly sonorous Ramon Vinay as Siegmund, the rapturous, enveloping Gré Browenstijn as Sieglinde — in Act I, Keilberth occasionally lingers lovingly over the erotically charged music. He can whip up storms, however, in the preludes to each act, with playing of cosmic depth and brilliance from the Bayreuth orchestra, wonderfully captured in Decca’s early stereo sound. There were no double takes or “patching” sessions, so the occasional smudge has to be forgiven for the sake of Hans Hotter’s magisterial Wotan and Astrid Varnay as a Brünnhilde both heroic in timbre and unutterably moving in her final pleas to her punitive father. The closing scene is simply glorious.
RICHARD WAGNER
Der Ring des Nibelungen: Die Walkure
A Stage Festival for Three Days and a Preliminary Evening
First day
Brünnhilde ..........................................................Astrid Varnay
Sieglinde .......................................................Gré Brouwenstijn
Wotan ..................................................................Hans Hotter
Siegmund...........................................................Ramón Vinay
Hunding..............................................................Josef Greindl
Fricka..................................................Georgine von Milinkovicˇ
Gerhilde .............................................................Hertha Wilfert
Helmwige........................................................Hilde Scheppan
Waltraute......................................................Elisabeth Schärtel
Schwertleite ..................................................Maria von Ilosvay
Ortlinde...........................................................Gerda Lammers
Siegrune .............................................................Jean Watson
Grimgerde ...........................................Georgine von Milinkovicˇ
Roßweiße...............................................................Maria Graf
Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele
conducted by Joseph Keilberth
Recorded in STEREO
Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Monday 25 July1955