Search - Richard Wagner, Karita Mattila, Iris Vermillion, Herbert Lippert, José van Dam Ben Heppner, Richard Byrne, Alan Opie, Albert Dohmen, René Pape, Kevin Daes Roberto Saccà :: Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Something missing...

Ryan Kouroukis | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 10/21/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"There is something missing from Solti's 2nd recording of Meistersinger. Sure the sound is nice, the singing is great and the playing too, but I don't get a sense of the drama and the dramatic through line, and for me that's the most important thing.



I don't understand Meistersinger as Meistersinger upon repeated listening to this "reputable" recording. When comparing it to his earlier version with the Vienna, this one sounds superficial...even listening to Karajan's two famous recordings I totally understand it and love it.



You can have the best cast in the world, the best orchestra, the best sound engineers etc. but if you don't show the drama, you got nothing. Sorry."

Surprise--Solti gives us one of the most elegant, best sung

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/12/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As someone who has also experienced and owned a good many recordinngs of Die Meistersinger, I have a different perspective from the reviewer above who lists his five favorite versions. Often the problem with Wagner recordings is that one critical element ruins the rest, however excellent. With that in mind, the second of Solti's two recordings scores high--there are no bad, or even mediocre singers, and some are among the best we've ever had. The opera world flocks to hear Heppner's Walther, and with good reason. In addition, the sonics, orchestral playing, and chorus are beyond reproach. The biggest suprise, however, is Solti himself, who had mellowed enough by 1997 to drop his habit of going into overdrive: this is a gentle, refined, but alert performance, with lots of inner life in the setting of a live concert-hall audinece.



But before praising the individual parts of this set, let me offer some comparisons with the competition, concentrating on that plague of Wagner recordings, the one dreadful singer who becomes the fly in the ointment.



Karajan, Bayreuth (EMI)-- This, the first important postwar Meistersinger, comes from Karajan's fleeting appearance at Bayretuh. Here in a live 1951 stage production we hear a great conductor at his finest and a cast that couldn't be bettered at that time, with Otto Edelmann's Sachs and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's Eva standing out. Long a famous set, this one nevertheless suffers from the curse of the nearly insufferable Hans Hopf, a bawling, burly Walther. You must listen around him and also make allowances for murky sonics.



Kempe, Berlin (EMI) -- Also in mono (EMI was just dipping into stereo for its operas by 1956) this set appeals to fans of Kempe and Elisabeth Grummer as Elsa--they also paired in Lohengrin to great success. I can only say that the gritty Sachs of Ferdinand Frantz, a coarse, loud singer, disqualifies the whole performance for me, and the Walther of Schock holds few charms.



Jochum, Bavarian State (DG) -- The very fine set conducted by Kubelik in 1967 was shelved becasued Fischer-Dieskau, the company's superstar, and Placido Domingo, taking his first steps into Wagner, wanted to record Sachs and Waltehr. Nothing worked. F-D mugs constantly and is far too light-voiced for the part; Domingo's German is rudimentary at best. Add a poor Eva and the routine conducting of Jochum, and this set can be bypased.



Solti, Vienna (London/Decca) - I can understand the English fondness for this set, consistently praised over the years by the Gramophone, because the Sachs, Norman Bailey, is British, and Solti was a pet conductor. But Bailey, however noble, is rather wooly and sluggish of voice. Love him if you will, but nothing can help the painfully uncharming Walther of Rene Kollo, who was lucky to come along during a complete famine of Wagner tenors. Not so lucky for us, he is marginally fresher of voice here than for Karajan. The Eva is even weaker, and Solti's conducting is coarse and totally without humor.



Karajan, Dresden (EMI) -- After the left the Philharmonia in the early Sixties it was rare for Karajan to conduct any orchestra except Berlin and Vienna, so it was an event when he traveled to Dresden to make one of the most magisterial Meistersingers on record. There are listeners who cannot abide Karajan's Wagner, and even a huge admirer like me has reservations, but not here. We get a lovely Eva from Donath, and all the minor parts are fine. But Kollo is distressingly ugly of voice as Walther, and just as unlistenable is the Sachs of Theo Adam, whose gargly, gravelly voicalism grates like fingernails on a blackboard.



Kubelik, Bavarian RSO (Calig) - You could heaar the cheering from Tokyo to Bayareth in 1994 when DG allowed this long-shelved set to be licensed by Calig. In retrospect the mid-Sixties feels like a golden age for Wagner, and here we get some of the best singers of the era. There are no weaknesses whatever in the cast. One can sit back to luxuriate in the gorgeous, easy, charismatic Walther of Sandor Konya (who also excelled as Lohengrin), the perfect vocal production of Gundula Janowitz as Eva, and the firm, masucline, youngish Sachs of Thomas Stewart. It was insane for DG to prefer the Jochum/ Fischer-Dieskau recording, but now amends have been made. Is this the perfect Meistersinger? Well, now that we've lived with it for a while, Kubelik could relax more, Stewart lacks the mellow wisdom one associates with Sachs; he's a bit fierce for such a benign figure. And Janowitz lacks charm in her pursuit of an almost mechanical perfection. Still and all, this set was miles ahead of the competition.



Sawallisch, Bavarian State (EMI) - Here we have EMI's fourth Meistersinger since the end of WW II and in many ways the most eagerlyanticipated, becasue for the first time since Melchior and Konya, a truly magnificent Walther was available in Ben Hepppner, here caught at his freshest. The voice is as beautiful as Konya's and, if not as powerful as Melchior's, more than strong enough to soar over Wagner's huge orchestra. The Eva, Cheryl Studer, was also caught in her all-too-brief prime. Neither sounds like the traditional German singers we're used to, but much of the cast were Bayreuth veterans. Sadly, two huge disappointments arose, Bernd Weikl, a strong baritone but a routine artist, makes nothing of Sachs, and for the first time in a great while, the conducting falls far short of ideal. Sawallisch has been lucky to outlive better conductors from his generation, but here his slack, unimaginative time-beating makes for a dull evening at the opera.



Which brings us to the set at hand. The Gramophone was highly critical of Jose van Dam as Sachs, and it's true that he is light of voice for the part, and very un-German. He isn't wise, benign, or exciting. His long shoemaker's song in the second act reveals a certain shallow, threadbare quality in his voice. However, he is a real artist, and every note is sung with finesse. Van Dam may not be to your taste, but he doesn't ruin the proceedings. Likewise, the Eva of Mattila is somewhat mature and ripe-sounding; you won't mistake her for an innocent young girl. But she triumphs onstage as Eva, even close to fifty as she is now, by looking lovely and acting well. As a musician she's certainly up to the task, nad her vocal production is creamy and affectionate.



After those reservations it's smooth sailing. Every other part is wonderfully sung, and all earlier Mesitersingers are put in the sahde by Decca's full, likelike sonics. Meistersinger is replete with ensemble singing, and Solti's forces blend like none other on disc. All in all, I want to give five stars, but I must bow to the deficits of Van Dam and Mattila and limit my rating to four."

My Favorite Meistersinger Recording

The Cultural Observer | 02/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is especially fortunate not only for fans of Sir Georg Solti but also for those of opera and classical music that his forays into the compositions of Mozart reshaped his perspective in conducting that gave us fresh, insightful, and beautiful interpretations that stand among the best, if not at the top. For many Wagnerians, his Ring Cycle remains the gold standard for his brilliant, classic Wagnerian cast and his animated, galvanizing reading of the massive score. In fact, most of his Wagner, including Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Lohengrin, and even that ill-spoken Tristan with the young Nilsson, all represent a high point in the composer's discography that are either equaled or topped only by other masters of the podium. That said, Solti's Wagnerian output outside the Ring is topped by an opera that he returned to in the 90's after a less than stellar flirtation with the piece a few decades earlier--Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.



Solti's second Meistersinger, unlike his first, represents a rejuvinated style of conducting that recalls the rich, long arching lines of a Knappertsbusch with the light yet sure-footed intensity of Karl Böhm. Lighter, more transparent textures are characteristic of this recording, and there is also a new found elegance and beauty and an uncharacteristic drive that wasn't found in Solti's earlier treatment of the comedy. However, this is not Wagner light, nor is it glacial Wagner. Rather, I would call it Wagner right. It simply has that breadth and clarity that characterizes the very finest conductors of Wagner, and how well did Solti evolve from his first, more driven view of the score! If anything at all, I don't think I've heard Wagner conducted so beautifully as to say that it sounds more like Mozart on steroids!



The Chicago Symphony in this recording is gossamer in their sound and technically adroit in their execution of the music. I've yet to hear a finer recorded version of the score in purely musical terms. The Prelude is a testament to how good things can happen when an inspired Solti and an orchestra of distinction combine forces. The rest of the opera is paced beautifully, highlighting an ensemble kind of collaboration that allows the cast and the orchestra to communicate in a natural manner. The best exponents of this are heard best in Act II's close--I don't think anyone in history has handled this scene better, even Knappertsbusch and Kempe.



Solti's cast is of course, the main draw behind this enterprise. Although Jose Van Dam at this stage in his career was no refulgent bass baritone, his intelligence with the words and his elegant instrument makes wonders out of Sachs. It should be mentioned that Sachs should not be in any way or form a dumb peasant with a nice voice. Rather, like most complex European thinkers, he should understand the meaning of poverty and living and art just as the many characters in European literature do. If some of Dostoevsky's characters (poor students and men in the lower echelons of society) can engage in philosophical blabber, then so can Sachs. European men are not blocks of lard like most American men are usually portrayed. They are deeper than that, and this is what Van Dam portrays in his Sachs.



Rene Pape is grand and gorgeous as Pogner, sensitive to the text and allowing his instrument to envelope the audience in its luxuriant velvet. Alan Opie is not as insightful as Bernd Weikl for Solti's earlier recording, but he does not play Beckmesser for a caricature. Iris Vermillion is a fine Magdalene, alert to her text and better than let's say Ruth Hesse or Julia Hamari. Her voice is also apt for the part. Karita Mattila is a strong and passionate Eva, making more out of the part than most Wagnerian blondes do. Ben Heppner is the greatest Walther for voice and ease of production. His interpretation is also rather insightful. The rest of the cast is congenially sung and characterful. The chorus provides a perfect backdrop for the characters and provides one of the clearest and most animated readings of an extremely important aspect of the casting in this opera. All in all, this is one of the greatest Wagner recordings and in my opinion the best Meistersinger in the discography.

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