This recording is worth buying for the first act alone: the crystal-clear English translation combined with Goodall’s deliberate tempi pull the listener immediately into the drama like a particularly gripping radio play. The tension built up over the act erupts with the arrival of Spring at the end - it must have been magical in Cardiff’s tiny New Theatre (where I saw my first opera - Idomeneo -in 1992). Kathryn Harries as Sieglinde in particular is a revelation throughout, dramatically committed and vocally rock solid. I’m so happy to be able to experience this artist here.The other reason to invest in this recording is Anne Evans' Brünnhilde: a beautifully sung, teenage Valkyrie, who also scores top marks when it comes to getting the words across the footlights. Things get less clear in the Wotan-Fricka scene, which needs all the help it can get, dramatically speaking, even in the best of circumstances. Also, for my taste, the Wotan is a little on the light side to have maximum impact. But maybe my perception is coloured by my feeling that Wotan suffers most from translation into English!There is just a smattering of audio hiccups - as if different, inferior sources were used for certain brief passages, and a brief (I think) drop-out of sound before Fricka bows out; but nothing serious enough to distract from the overall enjoyment of this valuable live document. Thanks, OperaDepot!

You have to accept that Reginald Goodall takes pretty broad speeds most of the time. Once that's granted, this is a gripping version of Walkure, the Wagner opera that is perhaps the most foolproof in that even a moderate performance still has an impact! Cast uniformly enthusiastic and willing, the Siegmund and Sieglinde in particular probably the best pairing I've ever seen or heard of the incestuous lovers. Has genuine sense of the theatre about the evening and well worth acquiring despite the odd vocal and orchestral slip.I saw the whole WNO Ring production under Richard Armstrong at Covent Garden in 1986 (broadcast Sept/Oct), who sometimes, unfairly, gets a rather dismissive "Well, he's not Goodall is he?". I recall enjoying the WNO Ring under Armstrong as a whole rather more than the ENO Ring under Goodall simply because it held together rather better at a faster pace, even though the ENO cycle looked better on stage.

The other reviews here have already extolled the performing forces on this recording so I will only urge Wagner lovers to acquire this. As far as I know this performance was supposed to be part of a complete Ring, but that didn't happen for a variety of reasons, Sir Reginald's failing health being one of them. Harries sings beautifully. She only sang a handful of performances at the Met (Kundry, Gutrune, and Clairon in Strauss' Capriccio) which is a pity because she was a fine artist. Ellsworth sang Parsifal for Goodall as well and he proves to be a very lyrical Siegmund. Evans' was new to Brunnhilde at this time, but she shows her great skill as a singer and actress. The "Ho-jo-to-ho!" is extremely accurate complete with the written trills. She sings with fresh, wobble-free tone. Joll's vocal prime was relatively short-lived yet he demonstrates here why Goodall was so keen to work with him. Payne is an imperious, no-nonsense Fricka (there is a small gap in the tape towards the end of her scene.) Earle makes Hunding more noble than usual. The Valkyrie octet is superb. All of the singers have excellent diction and put over Andrew Porter's lucid, clear translation very well. Goodall' s tempos can seem slow, but his pacing of the work is superior to his earlier efforts with the ENO.The sound is excellent, if cobbled together from both a stereo and a mono master. I'm very glad Opera Depot has made this available!

Many opera-goers, whether seasoned Wagnerians or not, rate performances by the WNO under Goodall as among the most memorable of their lives. This recording helps one understand why. The cast may all not be particularly well-known to international collectors, but, inspired by Goodall, rise magnificently to the challenges of the score. I was particularly taken with Kathryn Harries’s fresh-voiced Sieglinde, while Warren Ellsworth has a youthful firmness of tone that supports a fine characterisation. Anne Evans is also in glorious voice, again younger-sounding than many rivals on disc. Philip Joll conveys Wotan’s vulnerability, but there is authority there too. Fine, detailed sound makes it even easier to hear Goodall’s understanding of the score: tempi that are occasionally on the slow side, by modern standards, actually enhance rather than diminish the drama. A triumph.

What a find! The quality is excellent of this this wonderful performance

This is a truly magnificent and uplifting Wagner performance. No devotee of Sir Reginald Goodall’s Wagner should be without it. I managed to attend many of Reggie's Wagner performances between 1970 and 1984, but his Cardiff performances of ‘The Valkyrie’ were among the most exhilarating. The interpretation and casting were/are excitingly different from the excellent EMI recording based on three ENO performances at the London Coliseum in December 1975, which benefited from even better recording quality and great performances by Norman Bailey, Alberto Remedios, Rita Hunter, Margaret Curphey, Ann Howard, Clifford Grant, and the ENO orchestra (I attended one of these as well). The special qualities of the Welsh National Opera performances in Cardiff plus a concert performance in Swansea’s acoustically outstanding Brangwyn Hall (exceptionally, I attended three of these performances) included not only the extraordinary energy that Reggie mustered at the age of 83, but also the extent to which he managed to radically rejuvenate and revitalise his interpretation to match his relatively lithe and youthful cast, most of whom were singing these roles for the first time.

The great Anne Evans was singing her first Brünnhilde. Kathryn Harries, who had only started singing operatic roles as a Flower Maiden in the WNO Parsifal the year before, was a strikingly youthful, good-looking, and well-sung Sieglinde. Although Phillip Joll was younger, higher-pitched, and less god-like in appearance and voice than Norman Bailey, he nevertheless offered a very coherent, convincing and youthful characterization and a very well sung performance, which fully came into its own in the final scene with Anne Evans. Warren Ellsworth (aged 34) was a show-stealing Siegmund (he generated much more presence and Vickers-like intensity in this role than did much-loved Alberto Remedios, who unfailingly sang this role very beautifully, but was always much more distinctive, engaging and characterful as Siegfried). His death from lymphatic cancer in 1993, aged only 42, was a very tragic loss. The singers, the WNO orchestra and Andrew Porter’s excellent English translation come across amazingly clearly and vividly. Aside from one brief gap/jump towards the end of Fricka’s big scene with Wotan in Act 2, the excellent stereo sound is almost completely fault-free. In a review of the first night, Rodney Milnes wrote: ‘every aspiring Wagner conductor across Europe should be corralled into Cardiff’s New Theatre to see how it should be done!’