The Golden Ring

Watching the Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, and a stellar cast record Wagner's immense Götterdämmerung for Decca in the fall of 1964 provides a thousand lessons in the art of working under pressure. For this classic documentary, The Golden Ring, a BBC camera crew eavesdropped as producer John Culshaw guided his engineering team through tricky technical maneuvers far removed from the relative ease of modern digital editing. What utter concentration and focus Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Gottlob Frick, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau bring to their collective and individual singing! Solti, for his part, oozes energy and exactitude as he pleads for greater precision and frets over details in the car en route to the sessions.

• Humphrey BurtonDirector

• Birgit NilssonHerself - Singer (Brunhilde)
• Wolfgang WindgassenHimself - Singer (Siegfried)
• Gottlob FrickHimself - Singer (Hagen)
• Dietrich Fischer-DieskauHimself - Singer (Gunther)
• Claire WatsonHerself - Singer (Gertrune)
• Georg SoltiHimself - The Conductor
• John CulshawHimself - The Recording Team
• Gordon ParryHimself - The Recording Team
• James BrownHimself - The Recording Team
• Christopher RaeburnHimself - The Recording Team
• Jack LawHimself - The Recording Team
• Erik SmithHimself - The Recording Team