Most of this performance was used in the official Philips release of this cycle. It's a terrific performance and justly famous. Nilsson is in great voice and delivers some barnstorming high notes. Some critics insist on criticizing Windgassen, mostly for not being Melchior. I don't understand that as his lyricism and musicality combine to give us a very satisfying Siegfried, the voice perhaps less fresh than it was a decade earlier, but still amazingly steady and accurate. His habit of getting ahead of the beat is evident briefly in the concluding moments of the opera (something even the Philips editors couldn't fix), but it's only for a moment and is inconsequential in the context of a nearly four hour opera. Wohlfahrt's well-sung, cackling Mime is deliciously over the top (his mad laughter at the end of Act One and elsewhere was probably Wieland Wagner's inspiration). Bohme is a terrifying Fafner, growling and roaring with great aplomb. The rest of the cast is also first-class. Bohm's tempos keep the drama moving forward, yet they don't sound rushed. They enable each act to fit on one disc apiece.The sound is very good although it doesn't match the rich, warm sound of the official release.Onto Gotterdammerung!

Erwin Wohlfahrt is so utterly fantastically great as Mime. He plays the part sincerely, not like a caricature, and besides the usual harsh Mime-sound he puts an unusual touch of honest sweetness into his voice. The reason he never became a household name is he died (of cancer, I think, although I can't seem to find the cause of death now) two years after this performance, when he was thirty-six years old. (Yes, you read that right: you are listening to him singing Mime at age thirty-four.)You can hear him as Pedrillo, and, if you search a bit, as the Maler in LULU. He's on blurry b-&-w video (on YouTube) as David, with Windgassen as Walther and Greindl as Sachs.

One of the best (live) recordings of Richard Wagner's "Siegfried"! A must! Highly recomended!