The preserved acts 2 & 3 from the Met’s Die Walkure of December 18, 1937 star Australian Marjorie Lawrence as Brunhilde, Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad as Sieglinde, German Friedrich Schorr as Wotan, Danish Lauritz Melchior as Siegmund, Swedish Kerstin Thorborg as Fricka, and German Ludwig Hoffman as Hunding. Austrian Artur Bodanzky conducts.
The thousands of miles separating this cast’s respective nationalities are bridged by a fearless common abandon such as we rarely hear today in Wagner. Scorching.