(4 of 4)
Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen (assorted soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana, Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting; Seraphim, 19 LPs, $53.98). With Beethoven and Brahms, Furtwängler could be infuriatingly eccentric. When he was conducting Wagner, though, his stately, expansive, analytic style produced performances that were ingeniously congruent with the composer's convoluted purpose. Drawn from a 1953 series of radio broadcasts from Rome in mono sound that ranges from only dim to adequate, this is a Ring that every Wagnerian will at least want to hear, and probably own as a low-priced but high-keyed contrast to excellent latter-day sets by Solti and Karajan.
The Anna Russell Album (Columbia, 2 LPs, $6.98). In case of a Christmas overdose of Wagner, try this chaser concocted by the crown princess of musical parody. As Miss Russell plays the piano and sings, her hilarious analysis of the Ring is based on the reasonable premise that the way to solve the crime (operatic especially) is to learn the motif. "The scene opens," she chirps, "in the River Rhine. IN IT!" The Rhine Maidens? "A sort of aquatic Andrew Sisters." Wotan? "The head god, and a crashing bore, too." The incestuous relationship between Sigmund and Sieglinde? "That's the beauty of grand opera, you can do anything as long as you sing it." The beauty of Russell is that the more you know about the Ring, the funnier the record is. That goes for the other soliloquies in the album as well, notably the bubble-bursting How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera.