Wagner: Die Walküre

09/07/2006
Anthony Holden
The Observer (UK)

Sixty hours of performance by 27 soloists, 70 chorus members and orchestra of 130 - it can only be Wagner's Ring Cycle. Australian style. This second opera of the four is the first to be issued in the recorded version of the much praised Ring laid on in Adelaide last year by the State Opera of South Australia, under conductor Asher Fisch - and very fine it is, too, with Lisa Gasteen an outstanding Brünnhilde, Stuart Skelton a resonant Siegmund and Deborah Riedel an affecting Sieglinde.