New to Wagner - Just purchased this big box set.

[AnotherSpin]

The 1951 recording would be this one, I presume.

That's the incarnation I have. I prefer it to the later stereo one. I've never heard the Orfeo. Nor the Karajan or Levine. I hate the Boulez. It's too brisk, to use your word. My first recording of the opera was Solti's, but it's been quite a while since I've listened to it. The transformation scenes gripped me in the Solti.
[...]

I've got in my archives a 1951 Kna recording with this very sleeve. It must have been reissued umpteen times on different labels, Qobuz alone lists four or five variants.

My feelings about Solti are rather tangled. To Wagner lovers, his Ring was a milestone that opened the gates to that enchanted world. Yet over the years his Wagner has begun to sound a touch over-egged to me.

Meanwhile, conductors I never placed at the top of my personal list suddenly seem far more convincing. Only yesterday I listened to Karajan's Götterdämmerung and was bowled over as never before, whereas a mere ten or twenty years ago his Ring struck me as almost unacceptable. Perhaps I ought to give Boulez another spin.

[71 dB]

It is actually my least favorite of the later Wagner operas. But the recording to have is Knappertsbusch 1962 in stereo from Bayreuth.

My intend is to buy operas on Blu-ray to get the visual aspect as well. I may lose the best performances, but on the flip side the visuality adds to the experience, hopefully more.

In general I HATE the need to hunt for the "best" performance. It drives me insane and destroys my enjoyment of classical music. Why can't I just enjoy a good perfomance and be happy?

[AnotherSpin]

My intend is to buy operas on Blu-ray to get the visual aspect as well. I may lose the best performances, but on the flip side the visuality adds to the experience, hopefully more.

In general I HATE the need to hunt for the "best" performance. It drives me insane and destroys my enjoyment of classical music. Why can't I just enjoy a good perfomance and be happy?

Of course, determining the best performance is far from perfect. After all, different people have different tastes, preferences, and evaluation criteria. What's the best for one might mean quite average for another. Nevertheless, recommendations can be used as a guide.

As for Wagner operas with video, I don't recall being particularly interested in such things. I think the Boulez cycle is liked by many. A couple of times I saw something interesting in broadcasts, not necessarily released later on physical media. I remember an interesting Tristan from Paris; I have no idea if it was ever released on disc.

[T. D.]

My intend is to buy operas on Blu-ray to get the visual aspect as well. I may lose the best performances, but on the flip side the visuality adds to the experience, hopefully more.

In general I HATE the need to hunt for the "best" performance. It drives me insane and destroys my enjoyment of classical music. Why can't I just enjoy a good perfomance and be happy?

Over time, I've come to prefer having the visual experience of operas and listen to CD sets less often.

There's no reason you can't just enjoy a good performance and be happy. That's what I do, with the exception of a few favorite works/series. If I buy a recording of a "new" work (of which I previously had no recording) and find the performance good, I generally stop there.

I've revised my opinion of Solti over the years. I still enjoy his Ring, and it's the one that I've kept, but in almost everything else I've come to find him too loud and "motoric" (the latter a term I got from Mark Anstendig on the old Classical Insites  ). Although I've hung on to his recordings and listen from time to time. I had the Levine DG set, which is good, but sold it. I respect all the old historic recordings (Kna, Keilberth, Clemens Krauss,...) but just don't want to go down that rabbit hole collector-wise. Although I treasure the Kna 1962 Parsifal on Philips. I loved the Syberberg Parsifal film (Armin Jordan cond. as the soundtrack), which may indicate my bad taste...used to own the VHS...considered buying the Jordan on CD but held off.

The Boulez Ring is much better than I expected, though definitely brisk paced. I owned the VHS set for a long time, but ditched my player when VHS died out and donated the set to the library.

[Karl Henning]

Over time, I've come to prefer having the visual experience of operas and listen to CD sets less often.

There's no reason you can't just enjoy a good performance and be happy. That's what I do, with the exception of a few favorite works/series. If I buy a recording of a "new" work (of which I previously had no recording) and find the performance good, I generally stop there.

I've revised my opinion of Solti over the years. I still enjoy his Ring, and it's the one that I've kept, but in almost everything else I've come to find him too loud and "motoric" (the latter a term I got from Mark Anstendig on the old Classical Insites  ). Although I've hung on to his recordings and listen from time to time. I had the Levine DG set, which is good, but sold it. I respect all the old historic recordings (Kna, Keilberth, Clemens Krauss,...) but just don't want to go down that rabbit hole collector-wise. Although I treasure the Kna 1962 Parsifal on Philips. I loved the Syberberg Parsifal film (Armin Jordan cond. as the soundtrack), which may indicate my bad taste...used to own the VHS...considered buying the Jordan on CD but held off.

The Boulez Ring is much better than I expected, though definitely brisk paced. I owned the VHS set for a long time, but ditched my player when VHS died out and donated the set to the library.

It has been just my entrée to Der Ring, but I do love the Boulez/Chéreau production. I have no point of comparison, so I readily credit your assessment that it's on the brisk side. Seems perfectly musical to me.

[T. D.]

I didn't mean to damn the Boulez Ring with faint praise. It's outright darned good, not just "much better than I expected", and I like the Chéreau production. The fast tempi work for me...OTOH I felt compelled to buy the Goodell (in English) Twilight of the Gods just to see how the other half lives (Goodell is notoriously slow). 

[Karl Henning]

I didn't mean to damn the Boulez Ring with faint praise. It's outright darned good, not just "much better than I expected", and I like the Chéreau production. The fast tempi work for me...OTOH I felt compelled to buy the Goodell (in English) Twilight of the Gods just to see how the other half lives (Goodell is notoriously slow). 

Not to worry, I didn't read you as somehow "snubbing" Boulez.

[ritter]

It has been just my entrée to Der Ring, but I do love the Boulez/Chéreau production. I have no point of comparison, so I readily credit your assessment that it's on the brisk side. Seems perfectly musical to me.

Sorry to inform that the Wotan / Wanderer of that legendary production, Donald McIntyre, died two days ago (i.e., on November 13th) in Munich, aged 91. R.I.P.

[T. D.]

Sorry to inform that the Wotan / Wanderer of that legendary production, Donald McIntyre, died two days ago (i.e., on November 13th) in Munich, aged 91. R.I.P.

Very sad, RIP. I saw him several times at the Metropolitan Opera, NYC. One night after the show, I was in a restaurant across the street (Columbus or Broadway, I forget which), when he entered. People noticed, and he got a round of applause.

[Karl Henning]

Well, I did Meistersinger after the model of Der Ring; which is, one act per evening over three days. I suppose, given its nature as a comedy, it must needs be on the wordy side, and at the end of Act I, I just couldn't bear to carry on that evening. Now that the ice is broken, in future it will be a different story. As with the tetralogy, I love the music entirely, and to a significant degree disregard the book. On a purely artistic plane, and the Epilogue underscores this, there's a pantload (which the New Jersey Division of Weights and Measures defines as 2.3 shitloads) of AUTHOR'S MESSAGE. One supposes that Wagner was medically incapable of considering how this might be tiresome for the audience, when he was the Author. The quibbles aside, this is great music, and my ongoing experiment continues to be an outsized success.