Wagner: Das Rheingold | Stewart, Fassbaender, Esser, Schreier (Karajan-Berliner Philharmoniker 1978)

This film is the one existing record of Karajan's Salzburg Ring on video. Made in 1978, with imaginative extra film sequences to complement the original stage production for the Easter Festival, it brings to life the epic grandeur of Karajan's concept, with the fallible gods, headed by Thomas Stewart's nobly-sung Wotan, depicted in all their mythic majesty.

Audio in German with English subtitles.
Opera Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/wagner/das-rheingold/synopsis/

Cast & Characters:
Wotan: Thomas Stewart
Donner: (Played) Vladimir de Kanel, (Sung) Leif Roar
Froh: Hermin Esser
Loge: Peter Schreier
Alberich: Zoltàn Kelemen
Mime: Gerhard Stolze
Fasolt: (Played) Gerd Nienstedt, (Sung) Karl Ridderbusch
Fafner: Louis Hendrikx
Fricka: Brigitte Fassbaender
Freia: Jeannine Altmeyer
Erda: (Played) Martha Model, (Sung) Birgit Finnila
Woglinde: Sung by Eva Randova
Wellgunde: Sung by Edda Moser
Flosshilde: Sung by Liselotte Rebmann

Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Director and artistic supervision: Herbert von Karajan
Set&Costume Design: Georges Wakhevitch & Jean Forestier

Das Rheingold (English: The Rhinegold), WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on 13 August 1876. Wagner wrote the Ring librettos in reverse order, so that Das Rheingold was the last of the texts to be written; it was, however, the first to be set to music. The score was completed in 1854, but Wagner was unwilling to sanction its performance until the whole cycle was complete; he worked intermittently on this music until 1874. The 1869 Munich premiere of Das Rheingold was staged, much against Wagner's wishes, on the orders of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Following its 1876 Bayreuth premiere, the Ring cycle was introduced into the worldwide repertory, with performances in all the main opera houses, in which it has remained a regular and popular fixture.