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Editorial Reviews

Is this arguably the greatest recorded performance of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" of all time? No, the conductor is probably too individualistic for some tastes and the Walter is surely too pathetic for most tastes. Is this "Meistersinger" nevertheless still well worth hearing by fans of Wagner's comedy who already know and love the work? Under those conditions, yes, because this is, after all, a historically significant recording with a number of extremely attractive features. It is, after all, the first performance of the work given by the Wiener Staatsoper after the war -- on November 14, 1955, to be exact -- and it returned to the Viennese their favorite festival opera under festival conditions. The enthusiasm of the audience is palpable and the warm applause in Act Three is so prolonged it almost halts the opera. Among the performance's most attractive features is Paul Schöffler's deeply considered interpretation of the central role of Hans Sachs. Also superb are Gottlob Frick's Pogner, Eberhard Waechter's Nachtigall, Erich Kunz's Beckmesser, and especially the beautiful Irmgard Seefried's Eva. It's too bad that Hans Beirer is such a weak-voiced and knock-kneed Walter; in nearly every other respect, this is a supremely well-sung performance.

For some fans of "Meistersinger," however, the conducting might be too disturbingly different from the standard mittle Europa approach. With the brilliant Vienna Philharmonic, Fritz Reiner, the Hungarian conductor who left Europe for the Americas in 1922 and who had been recently appointed music director of the Chicago Symphony in 1953, leads a more accented, more linear, more driven, and far less sentimental performance. This doesn't mean Reiner's finale to Act Three doesn't glow with heartwarming emotion -- it most certainly does -- but that the teary-eyed sentimentalities and comfortably overweight sonorities of Bayreuth performances from the same period are here replaced by refreshing emotional honesty and textural clarity. While not for everyone, anyone who has more or less memorized "Meistersinger" will surely enjoy listening to this performance. Orfeo's sound is a bit hard, but still very vivid and very realistic. James Leonard, All Music Guide

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