year, are considered definitive. A second recording of her Isolde exists from 1959 with Ferdinand Leitner. She joined the Stuttgart Opera, and would reprise the role of Isolde on TV when Leonard Bernstein presented his "What Makes Opera Grand?" segment on Omnibus. Her Fidelio with Wilhelm Furtwängler from 1953 (which was recorded live before ultimately being recorded in the studio) is definitive, though she also recorded the role with Karajan, and went on to open the Wiener Staatsoper with it in 1955 under Karl Böhm. She performed as Kundry and Brünnhilde at the Metropolitan between 1956 and 1960. Her early career saw three Verdi roles: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Joseph Keilberth at the Berlin Staatsoper (1951), the contralto role Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera (1951, 1966), and Preziosilla in La Forza del Destino (1952). Three essentially complete recordings of her Brünnhilde (all three live) have been published: the 1953 and 1955 Ring cycles conducted by Joseph Keilberth, and the 1953 Rome Ring cycle under Furtwängler. The Rome Cycle is frequently cited as being among the best cycles ever recorded, combining the century's leading Wagnerian conductor with an all-star cast and decent sound. (Furtwängler very pointedly passed over the more-famous Varnay for Mödl as the female lead.) The 1955 cycle's Siegfried has not been released, though Brünnhilde appears only for that opera's final duet. The Walküre from this production, along with Keilberth's Walküre from 1954 (discussed below), represent the two occasions on which Mödl and her great contemporary Astrid Varnay sang the two leading women opposite one another; in this case, Mödl was Brünnhilde. Kundry, however, was to be her defining role, singing it at every Bayreuth production from 1951 to 1959 except for 1958, most famously in 1951, the year the festival re-opened, under Knappertsbusch, and in 1953, under Clemens Krauss. Furtwängler had engaged her to sing Brünnhilde for his studio recording of the Ring, of which, due to his death in 1954, only Die Walküre was ever recorded. The conductor commented: "Other singers can sing what they like; you'll always recognise them. With Martha Mödl, her voice identifies so closely with the role that you are only aware of the character on stage." She sang the role of Sieglinde only once - at the Bayreuth Festival in 1954 under Keilberth. This was the only time she ever performed Sieglinde (she later called it a mistake). She and