This recording features Marjorie Lawrence, one of the twentieth century’s finest Wagnerian sopranos, heard here in her vocal prime. It was with this performance that she astounded the audience by riding a real horse onto her stage funeral pyre, as originally directed by Wagner. Siegfried is sung by the magnificent Danish tenor Lauritz Melchior, in his only surviving recording of the Götterdämmerung Siegfried. The incomparable Friedrich Schorr is a sonorous Gunther, the German bass Ludwig Hofmann a dark-voiced Hagen, and his compatriot Eduard Habich contributes a suitably unpleasant Alberich. The conductor is Artur Bodanzky, directing a performance of great sweep, despite a few cuts.