Wagner: Götterdämmerung
25/11/2007
Sunday Herald Sun (Australia)
Who would ever have imagined Australia staging a world-class production of Richard Wagner’s marathon tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen, then climaxing it with the historic first super audio 5.1 surround sound recording?
What Melbourne-based Melba Recordings delivers here is Götterdämmerung, no less a brutal operatic challenge to singers and musicians than the preceding Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried, now issued.
The quality of singers, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s luminous accompaniment of the vocal drama, conductor Asher Fisch’s mastery of the music’s dramatic intensity and the sheer aural thrill of the SACD sound makes this outstanding.
And Brisbane-born Lisa Gasteen reaffirms her status as one of the day’s premier Brünnhildes. This, surely, would have Dame Nellie smiling with pride.