“DAS RHEINGOLD : Wagner
Original Air Date: 01/27/1951
Cast: Stiedry; Hotter, Harshaw, Svanholm, Davidson, Hines, Ernster
Media: MOD Audio SID.17430210 Tags: Archive; 2017, Wagner
Hans Hotter’s MET debut season This performance is taken from the Wagner at the Met CD box set.
I have not heard this broadcast, but the chief vocal interest lies in
Hotter’s broadcast of Wotan one of only two Ring performances he broadcast from the Met; the other was Hunding (not Wotan) in Walkure in 1954. Branzell returns to the Met after a 7 year absence and moves down from Fricka to Erda, appearing in 2 Rheingolds and 3 Siegfrieds in 1951. Her Met career spans 27 years from 1924 to 1951 and 412 performances.
Paul Jackson in his survey of Met broadcasts is not enamored of Stiedry’s conducting. I still hope this means we will hear the rest of the 1951 Ring on Sirius soon (which includes Traubel’s Siegfried & Gotterdammerung Brunnhildes; Jackson is especially fond of her Siegfried even though she omits the few Bs and Cs of the role..*”