Wagner – Der Ring des Nibelungen (Bayreuth) – Great Scenes

   in Opera Now (May, 2013)
Recorded at the 2008 Bayreuth Festival, this 2-CD set is something of a missed opportunity in that it leaves you wanting either more or less. It must be an impossible job choosing what to include in such a selection, and I’m not convinced that it provides ‘the Ring in a nutshell’ as promised by the blurb on the slipcase. For example, Fricka almost entirely vanishes, Gutrune disappears altogether and Brunnhilde’s slumbers must have been endless as she makes her first appearance in her duet with Siegfried. Similarly it makes it difficult to assess Christian Thielemann’s conducting, which sounds measured, detailed and grand, with a Ride of the Valkyries which verges on …