First I don't agree that the recording is very good. Apart from the only fair general quality, there are a number of faults, including a complete break in the sound towards the end of Act 2 and a number of bumpy transitions from one track to the next.The performnce is a different matter. I find it far superior to the Decca recording, which shows Solti at his worst, as he wanders from one unprepared climax to the next. He gives the great orchestral passage in the middle of Wotan's Farewell, one of the most moving moments in all opera, the crudest, brashest perfomance I have ever heard. At Covent Garden in the 1960s many members of the audience criticised him for his crude exaggeration of the brass, but in this 1961 performance, in comparison with the Decca recording, he is restrained. Obviously the VPO was a greater orchestra, bot Solti achieves far more sensitive reults with the CG forces.The Decca recording also suffers from the prosaic Siegmund of King and fom a Hotter who is only occasionally recognizable as the great Wotan of his generation. At CG in 1961 Hotter was not merely in slightly fresher but in immeasurably better voice than in the Decca recording. In this perfomance Vickers was a great Siegmund and Claire Watson a sensitive Sieglinde.I found this a moving performance, often touching greatness. Pity about the recording.

I’ve not heard the recording, so this is not a comment on it but just a point of trivia: Anita Valkki showed up a year or two later as the Third Norn on Solti’s studio recording of Gotterdammerung. One would have thought her stint as a Norn had preceded her career as a Valkyrie… I guess Solti was casting from strength. After all, Gwyneth Jones appears as Wellgunde on that same recording!

actually the Ortlinde was Julia Malyon and not Una Hale. Valkki also sang Brunnhilde for Scottish Opera