Paterson / Youn / Spence / Hartman / Bickley / Bayley / Hallé / Elder
(Hallé, three CDs)
It was 2009 when Mark Elder and the Hallé began to work their way through The Ring in concert. They started with the last work in the tetralogy, Götterdämmerung, and after nine years they’ll finally complete their cycle this weekend, when Elder conducts the third part, Siegfried, in Manchester. Each instalment has subsequently appeared on disc, and the release of Das Rheingold, taken from the performance in the Bridgewater Hall in 2016, has been timed to coincide with that final live event.
With their minimal stage trappings, all the concerts have generally been well received. But the excitement of such live performances doesn’t automatically transfer to disc so convincingly, and with so many great, historic Ring cycles now available, a new CD version needs to provide a bit more than just an enduring memento for those who attended the live performances. And though the discrepancies may not be as pronounced as in Elder’s Parsifal from the 2013 Proms, which the orchestra released last year, there’s an unevenness about the performances in this Rheingold that militates against the set as a whole.
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