Naxos’s first modern Ring cycle ends, as it began, with a thoroughly professional, (almost) unexceptionable performance that served well as the “soundtrack” to Stuttgart’s Millennium production on stage and screen. But there’s little here to counter the feeling of disappointment that Klaus Heymann’s pioneering company have not chosen to make their own Ring from scratch, rather than recycle (albeit cheaply) music-making that many Wagnerians will already own on DVD. And, for the first-time or impulse buyer, there are several more attractive options, starting with the Neuhold Ring (Brilliant Classics) currently available for less than a tenner.

Peter Konwitschny’s staging was the most radical of Stuttgart’s four-separate-productions cycle. His work on text can be heard here in the Norn scene – unusually detailed and intense, especially from Sue Patchell’s Third Norn – and throughout from Albert Bonnema’s Siegfried. The Dutch tenor, a joy to watch onstage, is not, however, a vocalist who always makes for the most mellifluous listening. Some of the off-note singing (and strangulated yelps) he deliberately essays in the hero’s death scene do not come off in audio only. Similarly Bracht’s complex, neurotic Hagen and DeVol’s intentionally OTT Brünnhilde (see the cover picture) seem bland on record. Among what one might call the audio survivors are the Norns and Rhinedaughters, Vaughn’s harried Waltraute and a more multi-faceted than usual Gutrune from Eva-Maria Westbroek.

Lothar Zagrosek’s conducting lies somewhere between a Boulez-like emotional distancing and the swifter, lighter readings of Kempe or Clemens Krauss. His players are alert and sensitive. Recording quality and balance are fine, perhaps smoother than in earlier instalments. Clichés about “if this were the only Götterdämmerung available…” and “of course it’s a good performance standard…” remain resolutely true but it’s hard to recommend this set in the face of so much cheap, more individual competition. Don’t, however, miss the soon-to-be-reissued DVD.