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The Golden Ring - Great Scenes from Der Ring des Nigelungen, Decca’s landmark recording of Wagner’s 15-hour epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Sir Georg Solti, is the most celebrated classical recording in history. The world’s best-selling opera recording —a recording project on a scale without precedent and the first-ever studio recording of Wagner’s masterpiece, it took seven years to record from 1958 to 1965. Solti and the legendary Decca producer John Culshaw assembled the dream cast, the greatest Wagnerian voices of the day: Kirsten Flagstad, George London, Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, James King, Régine Crespin, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Christa Ludwig, Lucia Popp, Gwyneth Jones and Brigitte Fassbaender. The luxury casting even extended to Joan Sutherland as the Woodbird in Siegfried. The perfect marriage of art and technology, this massive undertaking would not have been greeted with such unprecedented enthusiasm and rave reviews were it not for the skill of Decca’s dream team: Producer John Culshaw and Chief Engineer Gordon Parry. They created in sound the ideal ‘Theatre in the Mind.’ As Culshaw said: “It is precisely because the work is so huge and demanding that one should not pass lightly over any detail.” The recording set new standards for opera in stereo and is still regarded as the benchmark over six decades later.