Goerne does misery masterfully … As Goerne’s Wotan kisses Brünnhilde to sleep, the moment is so intimate that (depending on your speakers) you might even feel a peck on the cheek. Yet this isn’t a god to terrify or awe you. Once heard, however, Goerne’s Wagner is hard to shift from your mind: he has something new to bring to this repertory and his next steps with it onstage should be fascinating if he can find the right partners.

Goerne’s singing is very good indeed, though, and it’s fascinating to hear how he takes his extraordinary gift for Lieder singing and transfers it to the grandest of grand stages …There is scale, depth and height to all the bass-baritone parts he has chosen here; the finest, for me, being the Flying Dutchman … The real star of any Wagner opera is the orchestra, however, and the Swedish RSO are really fantastic here.

What I found particularly impressive was how Goerne successfully conveys so many characters and varying emotions vocally. After his wistful Hans Sachs, he slips perfectly into King Marke’s expression of pained betrayal...If you’ll pardon the pun, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra are on fire here too...an album full of masterful singing and expert orchestral playing throughout.

He’s an unusually tender Wotan bidding farewell to his daughter, a contemplative rather than bluff Hans Sachs...he lavishes velvet tone and insightful attention to text on extracts for Wolfram, Amfortas and King Marke. The surprise is his Flying Dutchman, uncompromisingly and gloriously fierce.

Goerne in ferocious form … invested with so much power, intelligence and vocal and orchestral colour … a seductive set of highlights with Harding and the Swedes matching Goerne even in the most lingering tempi.