A Natural ‘Ring’ from the Garden: David Breckbill savours Rudolf Kempe’s Royal Opera cycle
A Natural ‘Ring’ from the Garden: David Breckbill savours Rudolf Kempe’s Royal Opera cycle
Review of Der Ring des Nibelungen, conducted Kempe, Royal Opera House, London, 1957 (Testament, 13 CDs).
November 2008, Volume 2, Number 3, 91–6.
Three decades ago, as a fledgling collector of Wagner recordings, I first learnt from Alan Blyth’s Opera on Record that Rudolf Kempe’s conducting of the Ring had been greatly admired, but that not much of it (namely, only a single LP of studio-made excerpts from Das Rheingold, plus several orchestral excerpts) had been preserved on commercial recordings. Since then, various unofficial labels have circulated a complete broadcast recording taken from the first season of Wolfgang Wagner’s 1960–64 Bayreuth Ring production, and when that set came my way I was a little disappointed; the cast is uneven, while Kempe’s conducting seems restrained and lyrical, in accordance with his reputation, but a little stiff and bland as well. Kempe was apparently not happy with conditions at Bayreuth.