Tristan und Isolde (CD): Karl Böhm (1966), Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Martti Talvela
Conductor: Karl Böhm
Tristan: Wolfgang Windgassen
Isolde: Birgit Nilsson
Brangäne: Christa Ludwig
König Marke: Martti Talvela
Kurwenal: Eberhard Waechter
Melot: Claude Heater
Seemann: Peter Schreier
Hirt: Erwin Wohlfahrt
Steuermann: Gerd Nienstedt
Live recording from the Bayreuth Festival, 1966
Stage director was Wieland Wagner
"Böhm's set […] was taken from a live performance at Bayreuth, but apart
from such passages as the Prelude and concluding Liebestod, where the experience
is vivid, the performance too often acquires tensions of the wrong sort,
and Böhm's speeds are surprisingly fast. Nilsson is here more expressive,
but less bright-toned than in her Decca set, and Windgassen - in his time
an incomparable Tristan - begins to show signs of wear in the voice. the
recording favours the voices, suffering inevitably from live recording
conditions."
The Penguin Guide to Compact discs, Cassettes and LPs