Wilhelm Furtwangler's or Clemens Krauss'.  WF's 1950 La Scala version is
_the_ one to have --dark and tragic-- but in buying the set you'll have to
invest in buying a libretto translation too.  The orchestra is very attuned
to opera, since it's the La Scala, but some musicians don't know their new
Wagner instruments yet and don't play as well.  The final orchestral ending
during/after the immolation is amazing in it's intensity and indeed
overwhelming.  It's the stuff that shivers are made of.

Solti's is pretty stunning, but I dislike the extra-musical effects, which
I think Wagner didn't have in mind.  It comes with libretto.

Karl Bohm's orchestra isn't as good as Solti's, which is truly hard to beat
overall, but his singers are consistently good, and Nilsson preferred her
performance of the ring in this version to Solti's.

Levine's Siegfried is unfortunately either recorded pretty distantly or he
has a very dry, unreasonant voice to start with.  Behren's Brunnhilde is
pretty good, but Levine's direction I find rather stodgy and unyielding in
terms of tempi.

As you may have guessed I like my opera performances live, preferrably with
an enthusiastic, clapping audience (I may be alone in this though!)

Cheers,

Derek Lim