The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and its music director Fabio Luisi will release a complete recording of Wagner‘s Der Ring des Nibelungen on Delos, the American label of Outhere Music, with worldwide availability arriving on May 22. The 13-CD box set goes on sale in the United States a week earlier, on May 15, and is available to pre-order on Amazon. A two-week digital exclusive on Apple Music Classical opens on May 8. The early streaming window launches a year of programming the platform is devoting to the 150th anniversary of the Ring‘s first performances at Bayreuth.
Two years in the making
The cycle was recorded live at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center across 2024, with the four operas — Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung — captured during the orchestra’s concert performances and culminating in a complete opera-in-concert traversal that October. The cast brings together a roster of experienced Wagnerians: Mark Delavan as Wotan, Lise Lindstrom as Brünnhilde, Daniel Johansson as Siegfried, Christopher Ventris as Siegmund, Sara Jakubiak as Sieglinde, Deniz Uzun as Fricka, Tómas Tómasson as Alberich, and Michael Laurenz as Mime. The recording was produced by Dirk Sobotka of Soundmirror, the Boston-based team behind many of the most decorated classical releases of the past two decades.
For Luisi, the project caps a long association with Wagner’s tetralogy. He led the Ring during nine years at the head of Zurich Opera and at the Metropolitan Opera, where he served six seasons as principal guest conductor and won a Grammy for his account of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. “Wagner’s Ring cycle has been one of the most important and meaningful projects of my time with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra,” he said in announcing the release. “The Ring holds a special and profound place in the history of music, and for me it has always been a deeply personal, transformational experience.”
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Image © Sylvia Elzafon.
A milestone for the orchestra
For the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the release marks a high point in the ensemble’s 125-year history. The orchestra joins the small group of American symphonies that have committed a complete Ring to disc, and the project also opens a new partnership between the DSO and Outhere Music, whose European-based labels include Alpha Classics, Ricercar, and Ramée alongside Delos.
Apple Music Classical’s involvement extends beyond this release. The DSO partnership is the opening chapter of a year-long programme the platform is rolling out in connection with the Bayreuth anniversary, drawing on archival material and new productions from leading houses and orchestras through 2026.
The cycle is available to stream exclusively on Apple Music Classical from May 8 ahead of the worldwide Delos release on May 22.
