The Prelude is sublime; one experiences it with all the sense a shaft of heavenly light descending. I take such comfort in the assumption that someone or something will save us from injustice and the lust for power. Like Elsa, I long for a male savior to cast down the evil Ortruds and Telramunds of the world, castigate me not for my Romantic fantasies. Elsa doesn’t get her Ever After, but Ortrud falls screaming to the ground. And the recording I link to features the sublime Elisabeth Grümmer, her glowing radiance contrasting with and eventually transcending the both glamorous and vicous machinations of Christa Ludwig as Orttrud.