Der Ring des Nibelungen Studio recording in stereo 1980 - 83 Conductor: Marek Janowski Staatskapelle Dresden Männer des Staatsopernchores, Leipzig Chor der Dresdener Staatsoper Das Rheingold December 8-11, 1980 Wotan Theo Adam Donner Karl-Heinz Stryczek Froh Eberhard Büchner Loge Peter Schreier Alberich Siegmund Nimsgern Mime Christian Vogel Fasolt Roland Bracht Fafner Matti Salminen Fricka Yvonne Minton Freia Marita Napier Erda Ortrun Wenkel Woglinde Lucia Popp Wellgunde Uta Priew Floßhilde Hanna Schwarz Walküre August 22-29, 1981 Siegmund Siegfried Jerusalem Sieglinde Jessye Norman Wotan Theo Adam Brünnhilde Jeannine Altmeyer Hunding Kurt Moll Fricka Yvonne Minton Gerhilde Eva-Maria Bundschuh Ortlinde Cheryl Studer Waltraute Ortrun Wenkel Schwertleite Anne Gjevang Helmwige Ruth Falcon Siegrune Christel Borchers Grimgerde Kathleen Kuhlmann Roßweiße Uta Priew Siegfried February and March, 1982 Siegfried René Kollo Mime Peter Schreier Brünnhilde Jeannine Altmeyer Wanderer Theo Adam Alberich Siegmund Nimsgern Fafner Matti Salminen Erda Ortrun Wenkel Waldvogel Norma Sharp Götterdämmerung January, March and April, 1983 Brünnhilde Jeannine Altmeyer Siegfried René Kollo Hagen Matti Salminen Alberich Siegmund Nimsgern Gunther Hans Günter Nöcker Gutrune Norma Sharp Waltraute Ortrun Wenkel Woglinde Lucia Popp Wellgunde Uta Priew Floßhilde Hanna Schwarz 1. Norne Anne Gjevang 2. Norne Daphne Evangelatos 3. Norne Ruth Falcon

RCA, 7 4321 45417 2 14 CDs DDD Back Find any errors? Review by Marco Mazzocchi This much underrated Ring is my personal favorite at the moment. For exactly half the price of the Solti set you get one of the most gifted orchestras in the world (possibly second only to the Wiener Philarmoniker) in its full amazing splendor, under the baton of an extremely talented conductor. Marek Janowski conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden in a reading of the score that some might term cold, while it's instead supremely intelligent (I would even say intellectual if the term hadn't lost its original meaning--and acquired a negative one--in the course of the years). Hundreds of small details that one would never have dreamed they existed emerge from Janowski's reading giving the listener continuous pleasure. You can almost picture in your head the score of every single instrument while listening to this Ring. The cycle starts with the best Rheingold I have ever heard: the prelude emerges with a quantity of instrumental detail that's simply astonishing (while one usually tends to get just the strings submerging all the rest) and at a pace that's simply the most "exact" for this piece. The transition between the prelude and scene one has a lightness of touch, a swiftness, a mobility that for the first time render with appropriateness the playful teasing and swimming of the Rhine Daughters. Beautiful moments like this abound in this Tetralogy. The first act of Walküre manages to combine Karajan's intelligent reading with a Solti-like drive. The musical and leitmotivic extreme complexity of the scores of Siegfried's Act III and of Götterdämmerung (i.e. those parts of the Ring that Wagner composed after Tristan and Meistersinger) are rendered with supreme clarity. Nowhere have I heard in the closing seconds of the Tetralogy the Twilight-of-the-Gods motif--just before the final lone expansion of the Redemption theme--with such evidence and clarity. In Karajan you barely hear it, submerged as it is by the brass parts. The cast, despite some few minor weaknesses, stands proudly on its own. First you don't get two Wotans, two Brünnhildes, two Siegfrieds in the course of the work as it happens in some other recordings and this has its importance. A great feature of this Ring is also the possibility of hearing excellent singers at the very beginning of their careers together with other, more experienced, singers. Thus you get Jessye Norman's radiant Sieglinde, Siegfried Jerusalem's vocally firm Siegmund, René Kollo's excellent (and I repeat excellent) Siegfried. One would expect his voice to be a little too thin for the part, but while it shows some fatigue in the most difficult moments (the forging scene, and the swearing of the oath) it creates probably the most youthful, poetic and lyrical Siegfried on CD in the Neidhöhle forest and in the whole Götterdämmerung. Theo Adam's vocal longevity is astonishing when you think that he sang Wotan in 1967 for Böhm, but his vocal line is still firm and imperious, and the personality unequaled. And he possesses the text like no other ever has after Hotter. Yvonne Minton is an excellent Fricka in both Rheingold and Walküre. Peter Schreier is probably the best Loge on CD, in a supreme rendering of this ambiguous character, and also one of the best Mime in Siegfried, while Mime in Rheingold is sung by a not overtly gifted Christian Vogel. Kurt Moll is a strong Hunding. Siegmund Nimsgern is a good Alberich (even though one still misses Neidlinger's outstanding performance with Solti) and Matti Salminen is a robust Hagen. And, finally, Jeannine Altmeyer's Brünnhilde: while not possessing the vocal line of a Flagstad or of a Nilsson, in this early part of her career she was still endowed with a freshness of voice, a youthfulness of expression that certainly leaves aside the godly part of this character but renders nonetheless very well the human part, that of the woman Brünnhilde. Finally, the quality of the recording makes it an even better buy. The beauty of the Wagner sound emerges triumphantly from these 14 CD's. It is a DDD recording with a spatial definition, a balance between voices and orchestra, a balance between different sections of the orchestra that's never been matched afterwards. This is a Ring that's particularly recommended to experienced listeners. In it they will find an incredible balance between modernity and tradition and endless pleasure and fascination for the innumerable treasures Janowski, together with his sublime orchestra, unveils. Happy listening!