Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (Live)

This 1953 Bayreuth production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is most noteworthy for being the only recording of the great Swedish-American dramatic soprano Astrid Varnay, one of the great Brünnhilde’s of the 20th c., in the role of Isolde. The sure, steady and consummate hand of conductor Eugen Jochum leads the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and a typically wondrous for the time cast that includes Ramón Vinay as Tristan, Ludwig Weber, Gustav Neidlinger, Ira Melaniuk, and a young Theo Adam as the coxswain or steersman of the ship in this powerful and thankfully documented performance.