That journey had started seven years earlier on 24 September, 1958, when sessions to record Das Rheingold<\/em><\/strong><\/a> \u2013 the curtain-raiser to Wagner\u2019s tetralogy \u2013 began in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, a converted 19th-century steam bath known for excellent acoustics. The road to that opening session had, however, itself been difficult. Decca, the company making the recording, needed considerable persuasion that a complete Ring<\/em> cycle made sense commercially. Would enough copies ever be sold, they wondered, to cover the enormous financial investment required to complete the project?<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> When Das Rheingold<\/em> was eventually released as a three-LP boxed set in March 1959 (price \u00a36), Decca executives got their answer. The critics raved about the new recording and, crucially, it began selling in substantial numbers globally, even becoming a popular hit in the US. \u2018There it was in the Billboard<\/em> charts of the best-selling LP albums,\u2019 reported Rheingold<\/em>\u2019s producer John Culshaw, \u2018surrounded by Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, and without another classical recording in sight.\u2019<\/p>\n Culshaw himself was a major reason why Das Rheingold<\/em> was so stunningly triumphant. Seeing exciting possibilities in the new technology of twin-channel, stereophonic recording, he totally rethought how opera should be presented to the armchair listener. Culshaw\u2019s \u2018theatre of the mind\u2019 involved careful placement of singers across the stereo spectrum, mimicking stage positions and movements.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Wagner\u2019s own directions were a crucial point of departure in Culshaw\u2019s calculations. The score of Das Rheingold<\/em> requires 18 tuned anvils for the Nibelheim episode, a stipulation usually ignored in the theatre. Culshaw took it seriously: 18 anvils were duly found, and 18 players hired to hit them. The thunderclap heralding Rheingold<\/em>\u2019s final scene also got the Culshaw treatment, and was one of several \u2018sound effects\u2019 rendered with unprecedented fidelity on the finished recording.<\/p>\n Das Rheingold<\/em>\u2019s commercial success induced Decca to sanction a continuation of the Ring<\/em> project, and recordings of Siegfried<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (1962), G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (1964) and Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (1965) followed. Acclaim for each instalment was again virtually universal, many commentators acknowledging that entirely new standards were being set both artistically and sonically in the presentation of opera on record.<\/p>\n One critic hailed Siegfried<\/em> as \u2018the finest recording, as such, of opera that we have had so far\u2019. In G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>, Culshaw had special steerhorns made for Act Two, adding to what one reviewer called \u2018the alchemy of Decca\u2019s magnificent, stunning, overwhelming new recording\u2019.<\/p>\nWhy was the Solti \/ Vienna Phil \u2018Ring\u2019 such a huge success?<\/h3>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What did the critics say about the Solti \/ Vienna Phil \u2018Ring\u2019 cycle?<\/h3>\n