nucaleena said:

i agree that John Culshaw did a marvellous job with the sound of the Solti ring cycle and that the performances were fine. However, can i put in a word for a living conductor, Marek Janowski, who conducted the first digitally recorded ring 20 years ago, on Eurodisc (since re-released on RCA). The set was much praised at the time for its sustained momentum and sense of line.

The sound was very good (tho' without without being as spectacular as today's techniques might have made it), the orchestra was the superb Dresden Staatskapelle and the cast was just phenomenal (Peter Schreier, Yvonne Minton, Lucia Popp, Kurt Moll, Jessye Norman, Cheryl Studer, Theo Adam as Wotan, Rene Kollo as Seigfried and Siegfried Jerusalem as Siegmund).

More importantly, the conducting was as outstanding as the cast, - truly and idiosyncratically Wagnerian. That's not too surprising for someone who plied his early trade in the opera houses of Cologne, Aachen and Dusseldorf before taking over at Hamburg, Freiburg and Dortmund.

I understand that since the 82-84 set, Janowski has conducted Wagner in Paris and Chicago (as well as a fair bit of R. Strauss). He's also subsequently headed the Liverpool PO, the French radio orchestra, the Cologne O. and the Monte Carlo P.O. (his current patch).

I don't know how the 82-84 set would scrub up as an SACD remaster, but i'd be very pleased to see Janowski given a chance to record a version with today's stars. The sustained momentum and sense of line the 82-84 set possessed, as well as the ability to make a set of stellar soloists sound like a real ensemble, aren't things you associate with some of the conductors mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Janowski's the man!