Universal Music Australia Soloists/berliner Philharmoniker Der Ring Des Nibelungen (highlights) Cd

2013 sees a series of Wagner reissues on Eloquence from complete operas and highlights to Wagner singer portraits and even an audiobook!

Reissued for the Wagner Year are highlights from Herbert von Karajan s mighty Ring cycle. The disc includes extended highlights from the four Ring operas and allows us to sample Karajan s choice of different singers for the same character in different operas Fischer-Dieskau s Wotan in Das Rheingold and Thomas Stewart s in Siegfried. There are notes on the music as well as an essay by Karajan expert Richard Osborne on the background to Karajan s Ring, as well as a photo gallery of many of the key singers. There were and will always be many competitive Ring cycles on the market, but, as Martin Baker sums up [Karajan] creates [...] a transparent aural stage where the light and shade in the music has an almost forensic quality. Musically the Karajan Ring cycle has a visceral intensity that, especially in the subterranean scenes, hints at the sinister mythologies that informed Germany s recent history and is probably closer to the heart of the narrative s darkness than any other recording.