Nevertheless, any Ring, whether recorded anew or mined from forgotten archives, is a noteworthy release, and this Wiener Staatsoper Ring is a performance with many virtues, recorded with the superb clarity and natural but fastidiously-controlled sonic balance for which Deutsche Grammophon is celebrated. It is unfortunate that so many elements of this Staatsoper Ring are reproduced elsewhere, not least the combination of this Ring’s conductor, Wotan, Siegfried, and Siegfried and Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde, available on Opus Arte CD and DVD recordings of the 2008 Bayreuth Ring. The Staatsoper’s ‘pit band,’ from the ranks of which the players of the Wiener Philharmoniker are extracted, has not been represented on authorized commercial recordings since the pioneering DECCA Ring conducted by Sir Georg Solti, and any opportunity to hear one of the world’s finest orchestras in the music of Wagner is especially welcome. With these and other DGG versions readily available, alongside dozens of Ring recordings old and new, it is indicative of Deutsche Grammophon’s commitment to remaining at the epicenter of the operatic recording industry, even in a supposedly declining market, that precious resources were dedicated to recording, producing, and releasing this souvenir of Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, premièred at the Wiener Staatsoper in November 2011.
The label’s name and legendary yellow logo synonymous for many music lovers with top-quality recordings of Germanic repertory, Deutsche Grammophon’s catalogue already contains two studio-recorded Ring Cycles (those with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker and James Levine marshalling his Metropolitan Opera forces), as well as two of the most passionately-discussed Cycles in recent history (Patrice Chéreau’s ‘Centennial’ Bayreuth Ring, conducted by Pierre Boulez, and the Metropolitan Opera’s most recent production, directed by Cirque du Soleil alumnus Robert Lepage). Recording Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is for a record label equivalent to a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the zenith from which a label surveys its position among its rivals and appreciates an achievement that can define its reputation for a generation.
RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883): Der Ring des Nibelungen-Chor und Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper Christian Thielemann
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