Wagner's 'Meister'-ful Touch

This seems to be a banner year for Richard Wagner's comic opera "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg." Last month, the Bayreuth Festival -- the annual summer mecca for Wagner disciples -- made its first webcast, choosing a controversial production of "Meistersinger" that premiered there last year. The summer has also seen a veritable boom in historical CD issues and reissues of the opera, with three in particular clamoring for listeners' attention.

Considering its reputation as Wagner's most accessible opera, "Meistersinger" can be vexing. An emotionally ambiguous work of nearly five hours -- Act 3 alone is longer than all of Puccini's "La Bohème" -- its genial story of convention-bound medieval guildsmen learning to embrace tolerance and open-mindedness can't mask the subtext of xenophobia ("Respect your German masters," commands the final chorus) that made "Meistersinger" a favorite Nazi Party party piece, trotted out for everything from Hitler's birthday to rallies in, yes, Nuremberg.

None of that heavy Teutonic history weighs on a sunny 1962 live performance from the Orchestra and Chorus of the RAI, Turin, conducted with sprightly energy by Lovro Von Matacic, and sung in Italian. The way Renato Capecchi indulges all manner of opera buffa growls, chuckles and squeaks as the comic villain Beckmesser, you'd swear he was Don Pasquale on a Bavarian holiday. And why not? The two characters are kindred spirits in their preening self-regard and superannuated leering. And Capecchi's shameless Beckmesser is one of the most genuinely funny on disc.

Luigi Infantino and Bruna Rizzoli, as Walther and Eva, make a wonderfully fresh-voiced pair of young lovers, countered by Boris Christoff's sternly imposing Pogner. Giuseppe Taddei brings warmth, magnetic virility and a mahogany baritone to the central role of Hans Sachs, the philosophically inclined cobbler-poet. (It's a pity, with Taddei so fine in the part, that Sachs's crucial Act 3 fit of anger is excised here.) With its decent enough stereo sound, this lovable, handsomely sung production is a must-hear for Wagnerians.

On the long-awaited release of the legendary 1968 English National Opera "Mastersingers of Nuremberg," under the magisterial baton of Reginald Goodall, it's a distinct pleasure to follow the moment-to-moment unfolding of the comedy in English -- despite challenges to comprehension posed by recording imbalances, prissy high-British delivery and an often creaky old translation.

But with Norman Bailey -- his bass-baritone as weathered and full of character as a favorite old leather armchair -- pointing the text so masterfully as Sachs, his monologues (and his scenes with Margaret Curphey's tenderly sung Eva) are uncommonly rich and satisfying, especially when Goodall is so willing to slow tempos enough to distill the magic of Wagner's orchestration. Derek Hammond-Stroud (with crystal-clear diction) is an amusingly uptight Beckmesser, straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan, and Alberto Remedios, as Walther, is that rarity among Wagner tenors: a singer who can balance sweetly lyrical tone with vocal heft, inflect his words meaningfully and manage to sound for all the world like the young hero Wagner wrote.

A live 1997 Covent Garden performance (this time in German) has also surfaced, on the Royal Opera's own house label. Conductor Bernard Haitink's reading is suffused with an autumnal glow, the musical line sculpted with such nuance and character-rich detail, he raises this performance into the top echelon of available "Meistersinger" recordings. No wonder the audience goes wild every time he takes the podium.

Gosta Winbergh, lending Mozartean grace and a lovely shimmer of tone to his role, is yet another world-class Walther. (The three tenors on these CDs trounce the muscle-bound bellowers and overwhelmed flyweights who hobble so many recordings of this work.) John Tomlinson's Sachs, with his arrestingly grainy timbre and extroverted manner, falls somewhere between Taddei's manly plain-spokenness and Bailey's professorial introspection, in a thoroughly engaging performance. The rest of the cast, in keeping with Haitink's approach, does poised, subtle work, right down to Thomas Allen's tight-lipped Beckmesser. And, for a live recording, the sound is uncommonly sumptuous and detailed.

These warmly committed performances remind us of all that's right with "Meistersinger": Despite its daunting length and the politics of hate staining its history, this is at its heart a sublime and life-affirming opera.