Wagner: Die Walküre

I thought State Opera of South Australia sounded like the punch-line of a joke, but I got a great whack on the ear for my snobbishness from this electrifying super-audio CD of Die Walküre. A live recording made during performances of Wagner's complete Ring Cycle in Adelaide in 2004, it captures the crackling energy of the moment ... Conductor Asher Fisch controls the sound like an architectural engineer and yet is sensitive to the singers' needs. Lisa Gasteen (Brünnhilde) is in great form, Stuart Skelton has excellent diction and John Bröcheler is an authoritative [...] Wotan.