Charting a path through the maze of Ring recordings becomes ever more complex as the sets pile up on the shelves. To offset the completion of the Barenboim cycle (at full price), DG have reissued the Levine version at mid-price, while Philips have neatly recycled (forgive the pun) Bohm's classic Bayreuth set of 1966-7 as a budget box (no libretto) comprising 14 discs. (Note at once that Levine takes no less than 100 minutes more over his version!) With the six distinguished rivals listed above, all offering their own specific attractions, the intending purchaser is indeed spoilt for choice—but by the end of my journey through the listed comparisons I did come up with a definite 'best buy'.
First let me consider the merits of both the Teldec issues. They are undoubtedly better recorded than the two most recent versions, namely those of Haitink and Levine: the sound is more forward, more wide-ranging, benefiting from the acoustics at Bayreuth and providing an up-to-date confirmation of that house's merits as a recording venue, so well-known from the Bohm, and other accounts. If you take a key moment in Siegfried such as the upsurge of Fafner as dragon, the effect here is arresting when compared with that achieved by EMI or DG, and perhaps equalled only by the Decca team in the 1960s. However, the voices, while very present, do sometimes glare a little, certainly in Siegfried, recorded a year later than Gotterdammerung.
Barenboim's conducting achieves epic status, seconded by his superb Bayreuth orchestra here rivalling, if not surpassing, the excellencies of the Metropolitan players for Levine (Barenboim's Principal Horn, in the Act 2 solo of Siegfried is more virile than Levine's over-smooth player and Haitink's somewhat characterless one). That passage with the dragon already mentioned is given tremendous power and concentration. So are the grand and exacting Prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried, the Gotterdammerung Funeral March and much of the Immolation from the same work. Most of Gotterdammerung confirms Barenboim's mastery of the longer paragraph and his ability to allow the music to bend naturally to the needs of the drama and singers.
Yet Barenboim has to give way here, and often elsewhere, to Furtwangler (Rome, 1953), Krauss (Bayreuth, 1953) and Bohm, whose live performances (Barenboim's were recorded at Bayreuth while making a video version but not during the Festival itself) carry an extra charge—as, to an extent, does Levine in Gotterdammerung. The advantage of live recording is particularly relevant here in respect to Bohm: renewing acquaintance with that incandescent cycle, one finds his ongoing approach leads the ear ever forward to each succeeding episode; in other words, he is aware, more than any other conductor, except Krauss and Furtwangler, of the importance of the Haupstimme in these scores, where Barenboim sometimes allows the music to become curiously becalmed, even flaccid.
Barenboim's performances are blessed with Jerusalem's mostly exemplary hero, more positive than for Haitink. The somewhat uncouth, petulant youth of Acts 1 and 2 of Siegfried gives way to the ardent lover of the conclusion. Phrase after phrase is sung with ideal tone, line and care for words. I will cite just one example, that towards the end of Act 2 in Siegfried—''Linde Kuhlung erkles' ich unter der Linde!''—to indicate the tenor's sensibility. Only in the final duet, like so many singers before him, does he come under strain. Jerusalem's Gotterdammerung Siegfried is no less ingratiatingly and strongly sung, barring the odd patch of hardened tone. The Narration is intelligently but somewhat unevenly delivered. In line with Kupfer's production, his is a very macho approach: some may prefer Windgassen's less aggressive portrayal for Bohm and Solti, or Janowski's youthful sounding Kollo, partnered in Siegfried by Schreier's irrepressible Mime.
In Barenboim's set, Graham Clark's Mime is full of character and bile; perhaps with the help of his stage performance on the forthcoming LaserDisc/VHS I may be more willing to overlook his somewhat exaggerated way with the text and his added cackles. Haage (Haitink) and Wohlfahrt (Bohm) are more orthodox interpreters. Tomlinson's Wanderer is predictably vital and vivid, much more so than the uninvolved, though smoother-voiced, Morris (Haitink and Levine). Both give way to the unrivalled Hotter (Krauss and Solti), and also to Adam (Bohm), whose authority and urgent delivery are admirable. Svenden is an above-average Erda, but the Woodbird is thin in tone and the Fafner ineffective.
In the Siegfried finale Anne Evans suggests the womanly, loving side of Brunnhilde with her warm, appealing approach and unfailing musicality, yet the voice is hardly on the heroic scale (called for here) of the incomparable Nilsson for Solti, even more for Bohm, or the young Dernesch for Karajan. In Gotterdammerung similar strictures apply. In her opening solo, ''Zu neuen Taten'' in the dawn, post-coital duet, Evans sings carefully, even lovingly but with little of the elatory pulse of Nilsson or Varnay (Krauss) or the urgency of Behrens (Levine), and here she is hindered by Barenboim's curiously leaden conducting, no match for Bohm's or Krauss's. Nor at the beginning of the final scene of Act 2, ''Welches Unholds List'', does she convey the tragic import or sense of portrayal the passage calls for—again compare Nilsson (Bohm). In the Immolation, she provides her most cogent and full singing, but neither she nor Barenboim provide the dedicated intensity of Nilsson and Bohm, or the tragic import of Behrens and Levine.
Meier brings her customary feeling for situation to Waltraute's Narration, but she doesn't match the searing, glorious singing of Schwarz on the Levine set, or create the individual magnetism Modl exudes for Bohm. Kang's Hagen is confidently and truly sung, but not with quite the variety of declamation or tonal colour of his most notable predecessors: Greindl for Krauss and Bohm, or Tomlinson (Haitink), whose louring, leering portrayal wears well—he is better suited to this truly bass role than to Wotan, at any rate in purely aural terms. Brinkmann's Gunther is a more positive character than usual, although his singing isn't as firm or rounded as Stewart's (Bohm), or his reading as tortured as Uhde's (the model here) for Krauss. Bundschuh's Gutrune sounds too mature. The Norns and Rhinemaidens are adequate, little more.
Before summarizing my views on the cycles as a whole, I conducted a controlled experiment, listening to the beginning of Die Walkure Act 2 up to and into Fricka's arrival in all the sets under consideration. Where sound is concerned, I was astonished, though not entirely surprised, to find the analogue Solti and Bohm versions at least the equal of their digital successors, and definitely superior where the voice/orchestra balance is concerned, the Bohm the most satisfying of all. Symptomatic of the whole cycle Haitink's Die Walkure is too distant and recessed. Levine certainly gives us the orchestra up front but in an unnatural acoustic. The 1967 Karajan is splendid until the voices, almost disembodied, are heard. Barenboim has the widest range although, and I found this increasingly a worry, the voices appear to be in a different acoustic from the orchestra, almost as if recorded separately. The Janowski comes closest to an ideal among the studio-made performances.
When comparing all these versions with the Bohm, I found in his exactly the right relationship between the various components, and from the interpretative point of view—revealingly—Bohm conducting a performance in the theatre carries over naturally from the Wotan/Brunnhilde encounter into that for Wotan and Fricka, demonstrating that the two passages in the studio sets had almost certainly been recorded at different and possibly wide-spaced sessions. Bohm makes the ear move forward with the music and his interpreters—Nilsson, Adam and Burmeister—all sound idiomatic and involved: not such common gifts as you might think. Levine's and Haitink's Wotan (Morris) sings splendidly but sounds uncommitted. None of the recent Frickas is a match for Karajan's Veasey (vastly superior to her compatriot Finnie for Barenboim), or Solti's Ludwig (a pale shadow of herself for Levine); but with Solti, after a thrilling start to the Second Act, there is an almost fatal loss of tension on Fricka's appearance (Wagner marks the start of the scene Sehr bewegt). Haitink is sound but unexciting.
I also chose for comparison the dawn music in Gotterdammerung (already referred to when discussing Evans) as another difficult passage of transformation. Bohm and Levine are the conductors who really create the requisite sense of expectancy and their sopranos, Nilsson and Behrens, are the only ones to project Brunnhilde's elatory feelings; and here it is Nilsson who gives the listener complete confidence in her vocal capacities. She has declared a preference for her reading with Bohm over that for Solti and in this passage, and even more the Immolation, one can understand why.
Although no interpretation of this vast work will ever satisfy all tastes or criteria, Nilsson's truly great Brunnhilde, Bohm's overall creation of a tingle factor throughout the cycle, plus casting that has few weaknesses (though Windgassen's uncertain pitch can sometimes be a problem), many strengths (notably Rysanek's and King's Sieglinde and Siegmund) and the unvarnished, truthful recording, wholly gimmick-free, lean me heavily towards his account among the stereo versions. Of course the often-rehearsed merits of the mono Krauss (best cast of all and electrifying conducting) and the mono Furtwangler/Rome (a more cosmic, earth-moving interpretation than Bohm's) are still there for all to hear!
So choose Bohm if you want a complete cycle (now at a most enticing bargain-price), although the Janowski (mid-price) is a reasonable middle-of-the-road, studio-made (there are no stage noises) alternative. If you are wanting to build up a Ring by individual bricks, I might suggest Solti's 1959 Das Rheingold (still an amazing experience), the 1954 Furtwangler/VPO Die Walkure, the new Teldec Siegfried (with Jerusalem) as the best singer in the title-role, and many visceral excitements from the orchestra) and the Levine Gotterdammerung, a grand, well-considered interpretation, with Behrens's deeply eloquent Brunnhilde, Goldberg's serviceable Siegfried, Salminen's menacing, massive Hagen and Schwarz's unsurpassed Waltraute. However, I think in the end you will derive most satisfaction from Bohm.'