Seattle Opera's first Ring cycle approached completion with the springtime performances of Götterdämmerung in 1975; the full cycle, complete with Das Rheingold, would follow that summer. Archie Drake, who had been singing Wotan, took on the role of Gunther, which he sang for the next decade, with William Wildermann as his half-brother Hagen. In the English cast, Claude Heater--later to play Jesus to Charleton Heston's Ben-Hur--sang Siegfried.