Wagner: Siegfried (Remastered 2022)

Deep in the woods, and tended by the Nibelung Mime, the orphaned Siegfried has grown to manhood without ever knowing fear. A dragon’s gold, a sleeping goddess and the shattered fragments of his father’s sword will all shape his destiny, setting him on a path that leads to love, glory, and—perhaps—a new world. On the third night of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner introduces one of his most charismatic heroes. Part fairytale, part cosmic myth, and set amid the dark secrets and natural beauty of the German forest, Siegfried is filled with humour, adventure and the wonder (and surprise) of first love. This is Wagner at his most colourful, and in 1962 when producer John Culshaw and conductor Georg Solti recorded Siegfried as part of the first-ever studio recorded Ring cycle, they went all-out to bring this woodland world to life. As well as capturing the supreme Siegfried of the era, Wolfgang Windgassen, at the golden peak of his form, Culshaw employed then-new stereo technology to evoke Mime’s forge and the dragon’s cave, and cast Decca’s superstar soprano Joan Sutherland in a brilliant cameo as the Woodbird. The result is little short of magical, and in remastered Spatial Audio every note gleams brighter than ever.