ring keilberth

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“If youâ??re lucky, you might find a copy of the 1954 Bayreuth performance, conducted by Keilberth, with a revelatory cast headed by the Chilean bari-tenor Ramón Vinay…the interpretation is unsurpassed.” â?? ROUGH GUIDE TO OPERA

Another rare Ramón Vinay live recording, with the great tenor (and sometime baritone or bass!) in Wagner, a composer he first added to his repertory in 1953. The presence of the legendary Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and several other major German singers adds great dimension to this production. Historic 1954 recording.
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Best review for Wagner: Tannhauser

“Best” is an overused word, and particularly difficult to apply to performances of operas as huge and multifaceted as Wagner’s. There are now dozens of Walküres available on CD, and most have much to recommend them. This one, part of a live Bayreuth Ring recorded in real stereo by the Decca recording crew in 1955 but never before released, is just about ideal: all of the singers, absolute golden-age-of-Wagner-singing performers, are in their prime. Ramon Vinay’s baritonal Siegmend is both powerful and sympathetic; Gré Brouwenstijn’s Sieglinde is wonderfully womanly, though occasionally troubled by a prominent vibrato; Josef Greindl’s Hunding is a character to fear. Hans Hotter’s Wotan is flawless—his sadness and tenderness are as vividly expressed as his rage and, thanks to the always- alert and dramatically intelligent leadership of Joseph Keilberth, his confrontation with the imperious Fricka of Georgine von Milinkovic has the ring of absolute honesty. Astrid Varnay’s Brünnhilde is here caught at its best–utterly secure at all registers, girlish and impetuous but loving, a true powerhouse. The Valkyries are a noisy but accurate bunch. The Bayreuth Orchestra plays as if possessed—the trilling flutes in the “Ride,” wonderfully captured by the engineers, add to the thrill. The “best”? Well, absolutely remarkable. –Robert Levine
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Best review for Wagner: Die Walküre

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Best review for Wagner: Götterdämmerung

The release of Joseph Keilberth’s legendary stereo recordings of the first cycle of the 1955 Ring at Bayreuth brought Testament worldwide acclaim. Partly for recording security, partly out of interest, Decca’s engineers also recorded the second cycle, from which this first-ever release of Die Walkure is drawn. While taping both the Ring cycles and the performances of Der fliegende Hollander (also conducted that year by Keilberth, see Testament SBT2 1384), the Decca team also made some experimental recordings of excerpts from his Tannhauser performances. Keilberth inspires his orchestra here to a Toscanini-like sensuality in the dance music. The section recorded from Act III catches the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in his second year at the festival and shows the risks that Wolfgang Windgassen was pepared to take with the title role –employing, as Wagner himself asked for at the opera’s Paris premiere in 1861, a deliberately hoarse, broken tone for this failed pilgrim’s search for grace.
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Best review for Wagner: Die Walkure / Tannhauser- (2) excerpts (second Ring cycle, 1955)

This live-from-Bayreuth 1955 Siegfried, in stereo, was professionally recorded by Decca’s engineers as part of what was to be the first full Ring Cycle on records. Contractual disputes and producer John Culshaw’s desire to produce an “ideal” Ring in the studio killed the release of this Ring, and the tapes were locked away in some dark chamber until now. The result is breathtaking: Hotter, Windgassen (playing his first Siegfried), Neidlinger (as Alberich), and Varnay at their best, with Joseph Keilberth at the helm. Keilberth was not one for “interpretation” or anything other than telling a good story with drama, fine pacing, and musical accuracy. His tempi are invariably quick without ever being rushed, and he has some of Böhm’s intensity, some of Solti’s visceral excitement, and some of Furtwängler’s grandeur, while at the same time presenting a Siegfried that is very much its own. I’m not certain that this is the “best” performance of this opera, but if it were the only one you owned, it would be enough. –Robert Levine
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Best review for Wagner: Siegfried ~ Keilberth (1955)

This, the third installment in the first stereo Ring (once thought lost), from the stage of the Bayreuth Festival in 1955, is as impressive and crucial to any collection as the previously released Siegfried and Die Walküre. Joseph Keilberth, whose devotion to Wagner was so great that he died conducting the second act of Tristan, leads an incredibly tight performance–almost jaunty in its storytelling. The opening chord, depicting the Rhine, is not played softly as marked; it does rather plunge us into the action with more energy than usual. The singing is universally remarkable. Hans Hotter’s Wotan towers in its snideness and potency, while the Fricka of Georgine von Milinkovic is more subtle and alluring than we’re accustomed to. Gustav Neidlinger’s Alberich is, as on so many other recordings in which he sings this role, something to reckon with–a despicable but wretched character. The giants of Ludwig Weber and Josef Greindl have probably never been bettered; Paul Kuen’s Mime is articulate and creepy and Rudolf Lustig’s Loge is wily and clearly, cleanly sung. The only stain on this recording is the dreadful hissing noise given off by something called a “Mixtur-Trautonium,” an electronic device invented to simulate the sound of the Nibelungs’ anvils in Nibelheim. It’s a distraction, but it can be lived with. This set is a must-have, and the extraneous noise during that scene is small price to pay for a performance this thrilling. –Robert Levine
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Best review for Wagner: Das Rheingold

This 1952 live-from-Bayreuth Ring led by Joseph Keilberth is one of the tightest, tautest, most energized Rings available; only Böhm is faster (and not always–the Siegfrieds are the same length) and more intense in general, with Boulez fast but without the same passion. (Keilberth’s Götterdämmerung is 28 minutes faster than that of Knappertsbusch!)The sound is as good as that from any studio recording from the period, and the voice-orchestra balance is just right (the occasional too-far-back-on-the-stage phrase notwithstanding). It is a Ring of big contrasts: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey has never sounded so joyous (a few flubs in the brass just prove that the orchestra is made up of humans), his Funeral Music is as heavy as lead; the “Announcement of Death” in Walküre is intimate and still, the Valkyrie’s Ride almost insanely wild (with intermittent patches of bizarre singing from the sisters). The individual performances are more flavorful and “individualized” than on almost any other recording: Max Lorenz’s grown-up Siegfried is all mood swings and swagger (and a bit wayward, vocally), Bernd Aldenhoff’s young Siegfried is inexhaustible, Paul Kuen’s Mime simply the most multifaceted and best sung on disc, ditto the Alberich of Gustav Neidlinger (the picture of viciousness); Astrid Varnay catches every moment of Brünnhilde’s change from impetuous young warrior maiden to loving daughter to disobedient child to woman, and she’s in blazing, brilliant voice; Günther Treptow and Inge Borkh are a passionate, highly dramatic and extroverted Wälsung pair and Joseph Greindl’s Hagen is monstrously nasty. The late Hans Hotter towers over it all as Wotan in the wisest and freshest of his many performances caught on record. The rest of the cast is always involved and involving. This is a fabulous Ring. –Robert Levine
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Best review for Wagner: Der Ring Des Nibelungen [Box Set]