Bit by bit, Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are building up a distinguished and highly credible Ring Cycle. First came Das Rheingold in 2015, a wonderfully plastic account of the score with Michael Volle an incisive Wotan and Tomasz Konieczny a darkly dramatic Alberich. Die Walküre, recorded just pre-pandemic, is good in parts: Stuart Skelton, for example, an outstanding Siegmund. And although James Rutherford is initially a touch unsteady as Wotan and Iréne Theorin a trifle matronly as Brünnhilde, both grow in stature as the drama progresses. 

The good news is that Volle is back in Siegfried, bringing his accustomed musical intelligence to bear on Wotan in mercurial guise as the Wanderer. The voice is rich and burnished, the text thoroughly mined to yield up each and every meaning. While sounding appropriately mature, he’s never frazzled, and boasts some well-hefted top notes.

The set boasts plenty of other assets (not least Rattle and his orchestra, of which more anon). There’s veteran British tenor Peter Hoare as...