Review

The following is an excerpt from Old Wine in New Bottles: Fine Recordings Re-Released (November 2015) which can be read in its entirety here.

For 50 years the most talked-about, best-known recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle is the Decca set from Vienna conducted by Georg Solti (4783702). Decca initially took quite a gamble producing such a massive and expensive project, not exactly sure that there would be a market. However, under the care of producer John Culshaw, the recording was made, opera by opera, over a period of years and the four individual operas – rather, music dramas – and the complete Ring set, have not left the catalogue since. Decca has repackaged the set using the latest 2012 remastering plus the two-CD set of Deryck Cook’s, An introduction to Der Ring Des Nibelungen explaining the themes associated with characters and objects in the drama. A CD-ROM of the complete libretto with English and French translations and two booklets about the Ring and synopses complete the package. Most noteworthy is the price of these 16 CDs – around $50! A case of “it’s so cheap I can’t afford not to buy it.”