hi

i'm a great fan of the ring des nibelungen by wagner.
any other fans?

my complete ring cycles on cd:
-edition Herbert Von Karajan
-edition Georg Solti
-edition Pierre Boulez
-edition James Levine

my complete ring cycles on lp:
-edition Wilhelm Furtwängler
-edition Herbert Von Karajan
-edition Georg Solti

any other good editions available?

I think there may be one or two other fans of Wagner on this forum . . .

Der Ring des Nibelungen was my first opera experience and I watched all four operas back to back. It took nearly a week. I was never once bored -- in fact the experience held me captivated.

I must admit to being a little disappointed in the Siegfreid's Death and Funeral music section because I was comparing it to the same music used to far more epic effect in a similar scene in John Boorman's Excalibur. It is more epic than the Götterdämmerung production I was watching anyway.

Yes!

I'd recommend: Haitink, Bohm, Keilberth ('55, Testament), Goodall (English libretto, really good).

For me, the Solti is still the recorded cycle to have. He seems to realise that the work is a music drama as well as an epic work. I understand some people feel he overstates the excitement but for me his is a reading that truly returns the cycle to the the narrative arena aftter the Nazi associations and enables the listener to hear the work anew.

However, it is worth supplementing the CD set with the stupendous Boulez/Chereau Bayreuth production on DVD.

Umm, yeah... hi.

My 'go-to' cycle remains Solti- but Keilberth 1955 contains my favorite Siegfried.
Not, I hasten to add, that I think there's anything really wrong with Solti's Siegfried.

Since you can get Böhm's Ring Cycle as part of the "Wagner Cube" [a box set titled "Wagner- Great Operas from the Bayreuth Festival," on Decca] and get all 10 canonical Wagner operas for c. $70.00 (or less, haven't checked prices since I got mine over a year ago), the Böhm tops the chart of bargain recommendations.

I normally try not to pan Ring Cycle recordings- but a caution should be entered into the record concerning Haitink and Goodall. The oft-cited stumbling block with the Haitink is a sub-optimal Brünnhilde. Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung, particularly, suffer when this condition is present. Goodall is hampered by some truly distortive tempi- especially in Götterdämmerung. He takes so much longer than anyone else that once, when calculating average times for certain select Wagner opera recordings, I simply threw his time out. If I'd added it, I would have gotten an average that indicated that Götterdämmerung took longer than Meistersinger!
["The abominable slowman!" once quipped Wagner academic and author John Deathridge.]

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The hardest knife ill us'd doth lose his edge. Shakespeare- Sonnet 95

Visually, Boulez's Ring is good. For the musical punch from the orchestra, no one has improved on Solti. Why is Solti rued for the overstatement of excitement? He has brought vigour and I am sure his is a worthy offering. Many pooh his Mahler's Eighth but frankly I haven't come across a crisper and heavyweight recording than that...

I've been looking at Boulez' Ring cycle (mostly because I think I'll be given the Solti cycle toward the end of this month). Boulez has risen from being one of my very least favorites to one of my top 5 conductors.

I've heard the Bohm Ring (from the Wagner Cube CTP has above mentioned), and while I liked it, it was completely blown out of the water by a Met broadcast of Das Rheingold, James Levine conducting, and it seriously made Bohm's sound practically monochrome as far as how magical the orchestra sounded. I'm not sure about the soloists, but the orchestra seems so much... more in general.

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"Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!"
-Gustav Mahler

Are you refering to the Death of Arthur scene in Excalibur? Do you know what the title of the original music is?

my ring - a mix of solti/karajan on lp and the janowski cd set.

dj

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classica...cordings.shtml

This is a very comprehensive and accurate roundup of the current ring offerings available. I especially agree with the "I wonder how many people still manage to survive listening to it through" concerning Solti's Ring, considering how lacking his Walküre is.