Re: have your rankings of favorite Meistersingers changed?

"Richard Bernas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Candidly, one of the great virtues of the first Karajan set, IMO, was
> > its sense of humor and its crucial grasp of the conversational in this
> > work.  Precisely those two qualities appear to have paled to an extent
> > in Karajan's second outing, IMO.  This factor, along with one of the
> > least satisfying interpreters of Hans Sachs on disc -- IMHO --
> > effectively relegates this to......well, not entirely an Also-Ran (Kollo
> > gives his finest performance on disc here, and I have always been a
> > great admirer of Helen Donath)........the status of a decent and
> > professional enough reading with its share of peaks but not with the
> > capacity to maintain full interest throughout.
> >
> > Many greatly admire this set, true.  And whatever is good here is very
> > good.  (Gorgeous orchestral colors also count for something, no
> > question.)  But there is too much here that is, at the same time,
> > journeyman class -- and when one such instance of that is the leading
> > character (Sachs, in my estimation), the combination of that with the
> > (partial) loss of the conversational simply bulks too large to pass
> > muster for me.  Thus, this has always struck me as a decent set, but not
> > a leading one.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Geoffrey Riggs
> > www.operacast.com
>
> Many thanks for the terrific synoptic review of your favourite ten
> recordings.
>
> I can't help but notice that recordings by living conductors - we're
> down to Sawallisch and Barenboim - are absent. One might even conclude
> (however falsely) that Meistersinger performances get better in
> relation to their proximity to WW2.
>
> Fault of the times, of the conductors or of the recording companies?
> I've heard Haitink lead a wonderful performance of Meistersinger at
> Covent Garden, but the cast as a whole wasn't really worth preserving.
>
> Who would you want to record it this year? This decade? Just curious
> ...
>
> Richard

There are two very fine performances on VHS/DVD that have i.f.a.i.k. not
been issued on CD. The fiorst one is the Bayreuth production of 1981 with
outstanding performances by Hermann Prey as Beckmesser and Bernd Weikl as
Sachs. Even finer is the Berlin production from 1995 (?) with an exceptional
Hans Sachs in Wolfgang Brendel; imho probably the most moving portrayal you
will find anywhere. Eike Wilm Schulte is very credible as Beckmesser, also
he avoids the worst buffo abuses.

Today, I would have scored Karita Mattila as Eva, Wolfgang Brendel as Sachs,
Rene Pape as Pogner, Schulte as Beckmesser, Endrik Wottrich or Michael
Schade as Walther and  Schade or Matthias Zachariassen as David.

Regards

Hans