Question: What works based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the "Nibelungenlied" were first organized into a studio recording by John Royds Culshaw OBE
Context: Halfdan Ragnarsson (Old Norse: "Hálfdan" ; or "Healfdene"; Old Irish: "Albann" ; died 877) was a Viking leader and a commander of the Great Heathen Army which invaded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, starting in 865.  According to the tradition recorded in the Norse sagas he was one of the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok, and his brothers included Björn Ironside, Ivar the Boneless, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba.  He was the first Viking King of Northumbria and a pretender to the throne of Kingdom of Dublin.  He died at the Battle of Strangford Lough in 877 trying to press his Irish claim. Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner.  The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the "Nibelungenlied".  The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a " " ("preliminary evening").  It is often referred to as the Ring Cycle, "Wagner's Ring", or simply "The Ring". Gofraid, King of Lochlann was a key figure in the emergence of Norse influence in Scotland and the likely progenitor of the early Kings of the Isles and of the Uí Ímair that dominated the Irish Sea and environs in the early Medieval period.  Very little is known of him, including his origins and the nature of his kingdom, although his descendants are well attested in the Irish annals.  Speculative connections between these historical figures and characters from the Norse sagas have also been made. Gudrød the Hunter (Old Norse: "Guðrǫðr veiðikonungr", Norwegian: "Gudrød Veidekonge", litterary "Gudrod Hunterking"), also known as the Magnificent (Old Norse: "enn gǫfugláti", Norwegian: "den gjeve"), is a legendary character portrayed in the Norse sagas as a Norwegian petty king in the early 9th century.  According to the sagas, he was the father of Halfdan the Black, and thus the grandfather of Harald Fairhair, the first king of unified Norway.  He is considered by modern historians to be of a more mythical nature than other ancestors of Harald and Halfdan, and he can not be identified historically.  Historians have in turn made a number of proposals seeking to identify him with various would-be contemporary historical figures. Sigurd Hlodvirsson (circa 960 – 23 April 1014), popularly known as Sigurd the Stout from the Old Norse "Sigurðr digri", was an Earl of Orkney.  The main sources for his life are the Norse Sagas, which were first written down some two centuries or more after his death.  These engaging stories must therefore be treated with caution rather than as reliable historical documents. The name "Ofstad" or "af Awaldzstadom" comes from Augvald (Old Norse: "Ogvaldr") was a semi-legendary Norwegian petty king portrayed in the legendary Norse sagas.  If considered historical, reconstructed estimates based on saga information would have Augvald living some time in the 7th century AD.  His kingdom was said to have been based in Jøsursheid, somewhere in the interior of south-western Norway.  After a number of naval battles he succeeded in conquering the islands off the western coast of Rogaland.  He subsequently moved his kingdom's seat to the north-east of Karmøy, the largest of those islands and adjacent to the strategically important Karmsund strait, to a site later given the name Avaldsnes, after the king.  Augvald's kingdom further expanded to incorporate parts of what is today south-western Hordaland. Lewis Carroll's books "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass" have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published.  They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture.  Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on "Alice in Wonderland" focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice. Knowledge about military technology of the Viking Age (end of 8th- to mid-11th-century Europe) is based on relatively sparse archaeological finds, pictorial representation, and to some extent on the accounts in the Norse sagas and laws recorded in the 13th century. Sigrid the Haughty, also known as Sigríð Storråda, is a queen appearing in Norse sagas as wife, first of Eric the Victorious of Sweden, then Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark.  Sigrid appears in many sagas composed generations after the events they describe, but there is no reliable evidence as to her existence as they describe her.  The figure of Sigrid appears mainly in late Icelandic sagas, while more contemporary sources such as Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen instead claim that Sweyn was married to a Polish princess, identified as Świętosława.  Snorri Sturlason gives conflicting information and in one place says that Sweyn was married to Sigrid and in another that he was married to a Gunhild of Wenden. John Royds Culshaw OBE (28 May 192427 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records.  He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", begun in 1958.
Answer: Der Ring des Nibelungen