God love Wolfgang Windgassen! He had left Bayreuth briefly and had to dash back to replace a suddenly indisposed Ramon Vinay. His singing itself is excellent (though the part really lies too low for him), yet it's also obvious he hadn't rehearsed with Knappertsbusch before the performance. He had a habit of getting ahead of the beat anyway and here it happens several times (the most glaring instance is during "Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater" in Act One.) In all fairness, Windgassen isn't the only one who has some trouble staying in sync with the orchestra. Brouwenstijn (a glorious Sieglinde and a fine musician) gets behind Knappertsbusch's beat a few times. This isn't all the singers' fault since the great Kna doesn't always seem to have his mind on the performance. Nevertheless Act Three is a triumph. By taking the infamous Ride of the Valkyries slower than usual he gives the singers a better opportunity to articulate the text and the laughs which are usually slurred or messy at a faster tempo.The Usual Suspects (Varnay, Hotter, Greindl, and Milinkovic) are all terrific and very involved. The Valkyrie ensemble boasts some very fine voices. The sound is excellent; only a brief moment of file corruption (clicking) in the last minute of Act Two is disappointing (Disc 2 has an exceptionally long playing time). I would have preferred Andy spread the performance over four discs to eliminate the problem.Onto Siegfried!