Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen＜完全生産限定盤＞

史上初の全曲デジタル録音となった記念すべき「指環」全曲。ワーグナーが半生を費やして完成した大作「ニーベルングの指環」。ワーグナーを得意とするヤノフスキが優れた歌手を集めて3年以上の歳月をかけて完成させた史上初の全曲デジタル録音で、名門ドレスデン・シュターツカペレのいぶし銀のワーグナー・サウンドと、天下の名歌手たちがこの曲のエッセンスを心ゆくまで堪能させてくれます。ワーグナー生誕200年を記念してのライナーノート、リブレット付きの豪華クラムシェル・ボックス仕様となります。
ソニー・ミュージック

On the surface, this Ring cycle recording -- though a bargain price -- might seem like a poor relation to those by Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, and others, or to the live recordings from the 1950s by the likes of Wilhelm Furtwangler, Clemens Kraus, and Hans Knappertsbusch. The very names constitute big guns in opera, and their respective casts are not exactly weak either. Complicating matters further is the fact that Marek Janowski's Ring was originally released by Eurodisc/Ariola, a European-based label that, while huge over there, never had the profile or prestige of Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, orEMI; the fact that it's now on RCA/BMG doesn't exactly help, either, as the latter has lost a good deal of its luster as a major label since the 1980s. But the Janowski Ring also occupies its own place in history -- made over a period of just 29 months between 1980 and 1983, it was the first digitally recorded Ring, and also a true rarity as a Ring cycle recorded in almost perfect cast continuity from start-to-finish. Those technical attributes are fine to cite, of course, but the proof is in the listening, and in that regard the Janowski Ring has proof of its worth all over its 14 CDs. Janowski's conducting is both forceful and precise, keeping the pacing and the dramatic arc advancing in a way that never lags, yet he also leaves room for the work's occasional bits of ironic humor to play out to full effect -- in that regard, he is as profusely aware of the story and dramatic nuances as he is of the musical nuances, and never tries to out-guess or otherwise modify the composer's intent in either department. The cast performs impeccably as well, with Theo Adam an outstanding Wotan and Rene Kolo's lyric tenor ideal as Siegfried. Jeannine Altmeyer's Brunnhilde has proved a tiny bit controversial in the role to some critics, for her supposed lightness, but she is among the most lyrical in the role, an approach and a quality that, if not commonly emphasized, has some validity in the results here. Jessye Norman's Sieglinde is among the finest ever recorded, and Lucia Popp (as a Rhinemaiden) Cheryl Studer (as a Valkyrie) The 14 discs all sound great -- based on the evidence here, Eurodisc got its early digital recordings in the can with a lot more success than RCA did during the early '80s. There was a tendency by most labels to under-record their early digital sides, but this recording shows nothing of that problem; indeed, the textures, ordchestral and vocal, are quite vivid and crisp, and the listening experience is as vivid in its way -- and a lot more sound dramatically -- than the much-vaunted Solti Ring, which was the first such recording ever devised specifically for its ambient sonic/musical environment. This recording, as the first captured in digital audio, is technically the Solti's effective rival. The Solti Ring's producer and guiding force, John Culshaw, used the best technology at his disposal between the late '50s and the early '60s to create a Ring that was fully the product of the recording studio, utilizing stereo separation and dimensionality and the best editing and multitrack facilities of the era to devise an enveloping sound-picture -- the Janowski Ring, produced by Oskar Waldeck, isn't quite as ambitious as that, but it has its moments of sheer, overwhelming impact in the execution. The digital recording, though relatively primitive at the time, has yielded results nearly as compelling as the Solti: sonically flawless and so quiet and close and crisp that it, too, creates an illusion of envelopment, and is all the more bracing for Janowski's forceful yet finely nuanced conducting. The other beautiful part of it is the price; this 14-CD release, as part of Sony/BMG's "Complete Collections" box set series, lists for just $80, or under $6 a disc, and that's $100 less than the remastered reduced-price Solti Ring and $150 to $200 less than those from Levine, Karajan, and ot to be continued...