Wagner: Das Rheingold

CML call number: CD OPERA Wagner
Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times: "It turns out that the landmark account of Wagner's 'Ring' with Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, begun in 1958, was not the first stereo version. Before that some enterprising Decca engineers attended the Bayreuth Festival in Germany in 1955 and recorded the 'Ring' live, in stereo, with the great German conductor Joseph Keilberth. Testament has been releasing the operas one at a time, first 'Siegfried,' then 'Die Walküre' and now 'Das Rheingold.' The casts are incomparable, with Hans Hotter, in his prime, as Wotan. … But Mr. Keilberth's organic conducting is the revelation" ("Buying Classical CDs in a Post-Tower-Records World," 12/28/06).
Charles Osborne wrote in Wagner and His World: "Whether The Ring is successful as theatre or as music-drama is debatable. What is beyond question is that it provides the listener with a great musical experience, and one that in some mysterious way transcends the art of music alone to become almost a spiritual or psychical experience" (p. 101).