Ron Chaplin wrote:

>Other than a way to sell discs, what would be the reasons for recording the
>"Ring" in English when there are many wonderful recordings in German?

One reason would be a great performance, and that it what pretty
much everybody thinks the Goodall performance from the '70's (now
being rereleased in Chandos's "Opera in English" series) was.  The
principals--Rita Hunter's Bruennhilde, Norman Bailey's Wotan, and Alberto
Remedios's Siegfried--are major assumptions of these parts, and the rest of
the cast is strong as well.  Goodall's conducting is slower than most (he
was influenced by Knappertsbusch), but in terms of care in preparation of
the orchestra and thoughtfulness of interpretation and overall integration
this is typically regarded as one of the best-conducted RINGs.

The performance is so good that I would think even non-English speakers
might reasonably be interested in it.  But there is another reason for
English speakers to find this performance appealing, and that indeed is
the fact that it is done in English.  Even though my German is pretty good,
when I listen to the RING I follow it with a libretto and translation--it
often proceeds faster than I can process, and foreign words sung are harder
to decipher than those in your native language.  Even when listening to the
Goodall version, I'll often have the text open in front of me--anyone who
listens to sung English (if that is your native language) knows that help
(particularly, but not exclusively, in the soprano range) is sometimes
welcome.  But the difference in immediacy and communication between these
two cases (listening in German and in English with texts in both cases) is
so staggering that it is hard to believe until it has been experienced.
It helps, of course, that Andrew Porter supplied what everyone agrees is
a superb translation.

As someone on OPERA-L said recently, the only people he had ever
encountered who negatively criticize the Goodall RING are those who have
never heard it.  Well, that's pretty strong, but I think it is fair to
say that this is one of the major recordings of the RING (whatever the
language), and one that provides an immediacy for English speakers, at
least for those whose German is less than perfect, that they may think that
they're getting by following a translation but that they most assuredly are
not.

Nick
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