Buy Wagner Operas

Review by L. Lubin:

A bargain dream for the Wagner fanatic and the beginning Wagner-lover alike…At this price you can’t afford NOT to own it, unless you have them all already! That encomium now dispensed with, let us get on with the specifics: The set ranges from good to great, even legendary, but there are many variables.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN(1961):Wolfgang Sawallisch is his usual forthright, straight-ahead self, and that can be a blessing in Wagner. Tempi tend toward brisk and textures are unusually clear. Franz Crass is a fine Dutchman, a beautiful voice always in service to the text. He broods better, though in the La Scala performance, of 1966 with Rysanek. Anja Silja’s voice is girlishly bright, almost shrill at times but she captures Senta’s manic obsession without going over the top. Fritz Uhl is a better-than-average Erik. The veteran Josef Greindl lightens his voice admirably, and there is some fine character work, but his half voice approach is not always attractive. The balance between stage and pit is fine. A very good, but not great, performance in which the chorus steals the third act.

TANNHÄUSER(Dresden version, 1962): This was the notorious scandal of the season, Grace Bumbry’s “Black Venus” which, for all the fuss (first black singer at Bayreuth, no big whoop these days) isn’t as well sung as we would expect from her other recordings. Not bad, but not as voluptuous as, say, her Eboli. Silja is not at her best either, reminding me a good deal of Gwyneth Jones, and not in a good way. Windgassen is at his best, though; a voice I find hard to love (that top range can get awfully pinched) in an artist I always respect and admire. This is some of his most beautiful singing on record. Eberhard Wächter is a bit coarse as Wolfram, a real disappointment from such a rich-voiced singer. Greindl is adequate as the Landgraf, Franz Crass is wasted in the minor role of Biterolf, but Gerhard Stolze, before his stroke, reminds us of what a formidable singer he could have been. The chorus is fine, but the sound is so overly balanced to the stage that the orchestra sometimes disappears. There is an awful lot of stage and audience noise, very brightly recorded. The stage vs. pit balance is decidedly toward the singers, sometimes unnervingly so. Overall a good second recording, though the chorus, as usual, is excellent.

LOHENGRIN (1962): This is a GREAT Lohengrin. Not the blockbuster of Solti’s, but clear, solid and sensitive. All the singers are at the top of their form. Silja is sweetly girlish and sensitive, a teenager eager for her sexual awakening, Jess Thomas ranges from heroic to tender and everything in between. The third act duet is a real joy. Ramon Vinay and Astrid Varnay, both Bayreuth veterans as tenor and soprano, are outstanding as the baritone and mezzo villain pair. Tom Krause is an unusually sensitive Herald, and Franz Crass, as King Henry the Fowler, is in superb voice, cutting through the massive ensembles. The choruses and brass fanfares are brilliant, with the second act finale especially good. The only disappointment is the very difficult act one chorus before Lohengrin’s entrance: very clear and precise, but no real tension and excitement. Overall the sound is good, orchestra to pit ratio excellent.

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (1966): This is the best Tristan recording available. If you don’t already know that, there’s nothing much more I can say. Böhm’s orchestra is all white-hot passion; Windgassen, Nilsson, Ludwig, Talvela, Wächter…everyone at the peak of their game. If you already have it, don’t worry, you can give the old one as a gift, or sell it.

DIE MEISTERSINGER (1967): This was the Centenary of this opera, and Bayreuth could have done better. (Bavarian State Opera, just up the road, did it proud: get the Kubelik recording of that production!) Karl Ridderbusch is a fine, Sachs, the chief reason for this recording being reissued, I guess, although I find his phrasing rather choppy at times. Hans Sotin, at the beginning of his career is excellent, too. This opera benefits from the italianate touch of Silvio Varviso in the pit. But Hannelore Bode, although she sings well, is a bit overpowering as Eva. And Jean Cox…never heard of him? Here’s the reason. Its a decent performance, but not one of the top features of the set.

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN (1967 & 1971?): This is a very, very great Ring, although it is reviled by some who learned it from the Solti recording. That is also a very, very great Ring, but quite different. Böhm’s tempi are quicker, his colors brighter, and the textures clearer. It should be remembered that Böhm was of an earlier generation than Solti and Karajan. He learned much from his close association with Richard Strauss, who was an assistant conductor at Bayreuth for several years, working with Levi and Mottl, who learned it from, guess who…the composer. So it just may be that Böhm has it right.

Theo Adam is a very great Wotan, his voice clear and diction incisive, his characterization powerful and deep. Nilsson and Windgassen are perhaps better, at least more spontaneous than in the studio. Rysanek is glorious, if a bit loony as Sieglinde, but hey, you would be too if you’d been through…well, you know. James King is fine again as Siegmund, maybe not so intense as in Solti, but vocally solid. Gerd Nienstedt is surprisingly good as Hunding, a very low bass role, after a strong Donner, a baritone, in Das Rheingold. The Ride of the Valkyries is one of the most vivid I’ve ever heard. While much of the cast duplicates the Solti set, there are some interesting difference: Erwin Wohlfahrt’s Mime is darker and richer than Stolze’s; Thomas Stewart (Karajan’s excellent Wotan) is overkill as Gunther, but doesn’t acheive the tragic grandeur of Hermann Uhde in the ’53 Krauss Goetterdaemmerung. Vera Soukupova’s Erda is exemplary, while Ludmilla Dvorakova’s Gutrune is, well, not. Still, There is much greatness here, and at a price less for this entire set than this Ring alone, seriously worth it.

PARSIFAL (1985): James Levine had conducted the centennial performance of this opera at Bayreuth three years earlier with nearly the same cast except for Leonie Rysanek. While still a great actress and effective in act one, she was largely intolerable in the second act. Waltraud Meier, on the other hand, was at the very beginning of her steep trajectory into the Wagnerian stratosphere as Kundry and Isolde. Levine’s tempi are even slower here than at the 100th Anniversary,(I believe this is the slowest Parsifal on recording; the prelude is 4 minutes longer than Solti’s and the 1st act is 7 minutes longer than Karajan) and everyone in the cast has trouble coping with the languor. Not that there aren’t some very beautiful moments here and there, but you will have to be very patient to get to them. Hoffmann shows serious vocal decline and absolutely no interpretive growth in the role of Parsifal, considering he’d been singing the part for at least five years . Meier is a bit tentative, and Simon Estes’ Amfortas ranges from blustery to mawkish. Hans Sotin’s huge sonorous voice mainly works to fill out the sluggishness of Levine’s baton. I miss the expression of the magnificent ’82 performance. Also missing here is a decent microphone over the stage. The sound is decidedly balanced toward the pit, making the singers difficult to hear at times. Was this at Sunny Jim’s insistence? This is not a Parsifal I would recommend as a first or second recording, but its the one thats here. Maybe the ’62 Knappertsbusch would have been more appropriate. But this is my 15th Parsifal recording, so what do I know?

Overall, this compendium scores best on Lohengrin, Tristan and the Ring. But you can’t beat the price, even with a bag of chips thrown in. The booklet contains cast-lists and a few non-functional errors(one amusing typo puts Erda and two of the Rhinemaidens into Die Walküre), directories of cues, and synopses with cue points in English, French, and German. There is one very early photo of Wagner. Packaging is minimal: A cardboard box, and the discs are in plain sleeves with a clear window, each disc is numbered consecutively (i.e. Tannhaeuser Act III is disc #5, Parsifal Act I starts on disc #30)and the print is small, so if you aren’t careful they will easily get out of order and hard to sort through. Consider the liberal use of some Sharpies and color code, or get extravagant and print clear label overlays. I’ve put mine in 4 to a page sheets in a binder. The individual sheets come out easily and fold up CD size.

For anyone just starting on the journey through the Wagner operas, this is a great start. For those of us who have been traveling this path for decades, its a great supplement. Now what do I do with my DGG Tristan? Ebay?

Review by D. H Patterson:

This 33-CD compendium is certainly one of the finest bargains Decca has made available. All these recordings were made from live and rehearsal performances at Bayreuth and all are in fine stereo sound, well-mastered, which captures the Green Hill acoustic wonderfully well. At least one of these performances (Boehm’s TRISTAN UND ISOLDE) can lay claim to being the best available version; the old mono Furtwaengler version is its only real competition. Boehm’s RING is also a fine achievement, capped by Nilsson’s matchless Brunnhilde in white hot performances, perhaps preferable to her performances under Solti. The performances by King, Rysanek, Windgassen and Adam are classic and not to be missed, and Boehm’s conducting of the scores is propulsive and all of a piece. No other RING performance is so well integrated as this one.

Levine’s PARSIFAL is also on a very high level, with Waltrud Meier’s excellent and thrilling Kundry and Hans Sotin’s gorgeously sung Gurnemanz. The digital sound is especially winning here, capturing the opera in the theatre it was written for. I have real affection for Levine’s way with this score. I saw him do it at the Met nine times over the years and those are among my most cherished operatic memories. He made several later recordings of PARSIFAL and all of them are wonderful.

The other performances might not be my first choice among competing versions, but all of them are fine, representative recordings with many delights and nothing to seriously disappoint one. I’m quite fond of Silja’s performances (FLYING DUTCMAN, TANNHAUSER and LOHENGRIN – all superbly conducted by Sawallisch), and Astrid Varnay’s Ortrud certainly burns up the soundwaves.

At less than two dollars per disc, what are you waiting for? This won’t be around long.

Review by A. Flint:

Yes, it’s a shame that so many Amazon listings lack basic correct information like the number of discs, etc.

Using the “asin”, I tracked down this link:

http://www.encymus.de/rezensionen/richard_wagner_die_kompletten_opern_43_audiocds_2005

This seems to clearly confirm that there are 43 discs. There is also good information on the various artists involved, such that you can work out which performances are included.

* Der Fliegende Holländer (Hotter, Hann, Willer, Orchester der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Krauss / 1944)

* Tannhäuser (Seider, Schech, Paul, Bäumer, Klarwein, Orchester der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Heger / 1951)

* Lohengrin (Steber, Varnay, Windgassen, Uhde, Greindl, Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Keilberth / 1953)

* Das Rheingold (Wegner, Mosuraltis, Yang, Smith, Weinschenk, Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1993-1995)

* Die Walküre (Cook, Olsen, Wegner, Pohl, Nikolova, Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1994, 1995)

* Rienzi (Treptow, Eipperle, Prybit, Schlüter, RSO Hessen, Zillig / 1950)

* Parsifal (London, Weber, Windgassen, Uhde, Mödl, Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Knappertsbusch / 1951)

* Die Feen (Korhonen, Patchell, Sonntag, Kriscak, Sirkiä, Teatro Comunale di Cagliari Orchestra,Ötvös / 1998)

* Götterdämmerung (Cook, Brinkmann, Bryjak, Tervo, Ronge, Pohl, Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1995)

* Meistersinger (Edelmann, Hopf, Schwarzkopf, Kunz, Unger, Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Karajan / 1951)

* Siegfried (Neumann, Weinschenk, Wegner, Bryjak, Yang, Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1994, 1995)

* Das Liebesverbot (Walter, Zadek, Dermota, Friedrich, Steffek, Großes Wiener Rundfunkorchester, Heger / 1963)

* Tristan & Isolde (Suthaus, Flagstad, Greindl, Fischer-Dieskau, Thebom, Philharmonia Orchestra, Furtwängler / 1952)

I hope this is helpful. I am seriously considering the purchase, particularly for some of the more obscure operas. I note, though, that this included Ring may be had for an even cheaper per disc price.

Review by Sally Burnell:

I was raised in a large family headed by a single parent, my mother, who was widowed while pregnant with my brother. She had few moments of peace and quiet trying to raise the four of us in a small house. But Saturday afternoons, starting at 1:00, she demanded time for herself to listen, on the radio, to the Metropolitan Opera, live from Lincoln Center in New York, hosted by Milton Cross. This album nostalgically brings back to me those quiet Saturday afternoons, with the Opera on the radio, my mother sitting in her favourite chair reading.
None of us cared for Opera in those days. It wasn’t until years later, watching a simulcast of Puccini’s “La Boheme” on PBS that was also being broadcast on the radio, that I began to appreciate what my mother loved for all those years. To finally see the action, and to read the subtitles, made me realise how wonderfully romantic Opera really was, and this album is “mother’s milk” to my ears. It’s literally the best of the best of Opera arias and overtures, and now I regard this music with many fond memories of my childhood.
Also, if you are, like me, of the generation that was raised on Looney Tunes cartoons, you will recognise how many clever and downright hilarious send-ups they did of Opera, if you were listening to the music while watching the cartoons. Those cartoons were as much for the adult audiences as they were for children, and many of us received our earliest introductions to serious music through those classic cartoons. You will hear many of those arias and overtures that Warner Brothers used in those days in their cartoons. I only wish they would do something like that again so that today’s children would not regard Classical Music as some kind of collosal bore.
If you’ve never listened to Opera, this is the album to get to introduce yourself to it. This features the very best of many composers and styles of Opera, and should be an essential part of any good music lover’s library. I highly recommend this album for anyone who’s either intimately familiar with Opera or who has never before listened to it. It’s well worth your while to acquire this CD.

Review by Joanna Daneman:

I have plenty of opera, but I wanted this CD for my favorites all in one place. There were three particular arias that made this a very good choice; the tenor duet from the Pearl Fishers (Les Pecheurs De Perles: C’est Toi… Au Fond Du Temple Saint), Montserrat Caballé doing Turandot and Lucia Popp in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. This is really a very well-thought-out assembly of opera. You can’t go far wrong with this cd.

Review by Stephen McLeod:

I have three complete RINGs on CD, this one and two live recordings from Bayreuth (Bohm ’67 and Clemens Kraus ’53). I also have two complete RINGS on laser disc, both from Bayreuth (the Chereau and Kupfer productions) and one on VHS (Met-Levine). One day I’m sure I’ll have more. Since I have only heard bits of what appears to be this set’s main competition (Karajan), I can’t make a reliable comparison. Also, insofar as this review compares sets, it does just that. I take no position here as to whether one might mix and match. That said, if I had to choose a Desert Island RING, I’d choose this one for a number of reasons. (If anyone wants to donate their Karajan set, my email is on my profile page…) The foremost reason is the quality of the singing. For my money, there is not a cast that is more consistently thrilling. I’m not saying that different choices could have been made in some of the series (e.g., for all its sentimental and historical value, Fricka was not Flagstad’s greatest role, nor was Flagstad the perfect Fricka). It’s just that, on the whole, the principles, are the best ensemble on record, and, especially in Gotterdammerung, sang better here than on practically anything else they ever recorded.Nilsson is… well, not only is she one of the two or three greatest dramatic sopranos on record, she is so clearly focused here, so thoroughly transcendent. Hers was a voice that was entirely convincing as a god-become-mortal. Windgassen is the finest Siegfried on stereo – and his silky, lyrical, yet completely heroic tenor is better than any other recorded Siegfried, and maybe better than anything else even *he* ever recorded. Although it would seem to go without saying, mysteriously, it does not: It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to have a good Siegfried. This is where every other set fails most remarkably (S. Jerusalem on Levine, for example almost dies trying to get through his last scene in Gotterdammerung; even where Windgassen reprises his role for Bohm, he’s much more pleasing here). As Wotan, Hans Hotter’s performance here has been somewhat controversial because people generally say he was too old. (Hotter sings on Walkure and Siegfriend; George London is Wotan on Rhinegold.) On the contrary, his Wotan is the most heartbreaking on record for me precisely because it comes at the end of a long career of studying and singing this role, finding its depths, and reaching for dramatic resonance that no one else equals, IMHO. Sure Morris is great, but while his Wotan is bigger more furious, Hotter’s is wiser and more deeply resigned. Anyway, are you going to buy a whole set for Morris? Neidlinger’s Alberich is terrifying. Gustav Neidlinger’s Alberich is a combination of absolute musicality with unsurpassed dramatic rigor. He is existentially terrifying in every scene that he’s in. James King and Regine Crespin are fine as the twins. This Walkure is generally regarded as the weakest leg on this set. I think that’s only because the human mind, and particularly the mind of the typical “operatchik,” works that way – it is essential to find fault. Nothing is perfect but that unrecorded ideal performance in the misty past… I don’t have a clue what is objectionable here. The only thing I can think of is that, of all the parts of this RING, it is possible to imagine a cast that’s equally as good as that of Walkure here. The second string is equally inimitable: Gottlob Frick’s amazing Hagen and almost as amazing Hunding , Fischer-Dieskau’s Gunther, Claire Watson’s Gutrune, and Christa Ludwig’s fine Waltraute. Of equal interests are such “incidentals” such as Joan Sutherland’s Woodbird, the Rhinemaiden trio in Gotterdammerung of Lucia Popp, Gwyneth Jones and Maureen Guy (who?), the amazing Gerhard Stolze as Mime on Siegfried, and of course, Flagstad’s Fricka only add miracles upon miracles. Does anyone think that we’ll ever see a comparable cast?As for Solti and the VPO, well, first, I don’t think Vienna has ever been touched for its pure sensuality. I love the moods. I love the thunder. I love the horns and the voluptuous strings. As for Solti, I’m a fan: I love his drama and his melodrama. I totally disagree with his detractors who complain of his alleged bombast. Shouldn’t an authentic Wagnerian show a little bombast? And shouldn’t a RING orchestra stand as something far more than a huge “guitar” in any performance? Not only that, but to read some reviewers, you would think that “bombast” was this recording’s main characteristic. Frankly, I just don’t understand that view. I think the orchestral performance here, whether attributable mainly to Solti, producer Culshaw, the VPO or all three, has not been surpassed in subtlety and insight on anything I’ve ever heard. Finally, there’s the Culshaw factor. Those who know what he was doing here will have their opinions. I think it was a monumental project that took as its touchstone an truth about this drama that is too often ignored: This music was written for the stage. Any audio recording then, will be ultimately lacking. What Culshaw did, more successfully than any other producer, was give us an audio RING that, by explointing stereo/hi-fi technology, approximates a theatrical experience. I could go on. But ultimately, it is my opinion that at least here, you can believe the hype.

Review by :

Ever since the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951, the operatic world has been blessed with many Ring recordings that are brimming with life and searing in interpretation. The work is certainly the most ambitious and fascinating musical epic ever set on paper, and due to its intricate music and magnificent and poetic text, it has influenced the way music making has been done ever since the Master presented it to the world in 1876. Now, 130 years after that first Ring cycle, the market abounds with hordes of Ring recordings raging from magnificent to deplorable, and with the cost of having to contain such a grand epic in recordable media for the listener to enjoy at home, the pricetags for these Rings are always going to be astounding.

A Ring cycle in the recording studio, of course, is no longer a foreseeable possibility today. The recent Tristan by EMI alone took a good month in the recoring studio, and with the increasingly high wages in the musician’s union and the expensive fees needed to pay competent and artistic Wagnerian singers, another Ring in the studio would probably be a Herculean task at best. And, to add to that, the world is sorely lackiing of hochdramatische sopranos, true heldentenors, and great bass-baritones to sing the parts of the cycle’s most difficult roles–Brunnhilde, Siegfried, and Wotan. The dearth of these species of voices, plus the scarcity of conductors who can masterfully lead an orchestra into playing one of the most complicated scores ever written in the true Wagnerian style, makes these matters more complicated. In my opinion, only Christian Thielemann can possibly execute this vision effectively today. Due to this, in order to be able to experience this monumental opus, you must turn to the recordings of the past to sample the greatness of Richard Wagner.

I personally feel that the greatest Rings come from the postwar Wieland Wagner Bayreuth festivals. Under his leadership, a calibre of Wagner singing was formed and has been unmatched ever since his premature death from lung cancer. With a team that consisted of chorus master Wilhelm Pitz, singers Astrid Varnay, Hans Hotter, Wolfgang Windgassen, Ramon Vinay, Gustav Neidlinger, Gre Brouwenstijn, Martha Modl, and later Birgit Nilsson, Martti Talvela, James King, Leonie Rysanek, and other singers who owned these roles in the Theatre on the Green Hill, plus a plethora of conductors that consisted of Herbert von Karajan, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Joseph Keilberth, and Rudolf Kempe (all conductors who by some divine intervention all had last names beginning with “K”), Wieland Wagner unveiled a new and fresh way of Wagner interpretation along with a team of singers and musicians who made this great music sing.

Some people though, would much prefer the music in the undisturbed, almost pristine conditions achieved by the recording studio. While there are several Der Ring des Nibelungen that have come out of recording halls following this one, none of them have matched it in popularity. And there is a reason for that of course. Solti leads the Wiener Philharmoniker in a recording that brings the theatrical values of Wagner’s operas to the comfort of the living room without the stage noises and other distractions that some listeners seem to detest. In addition to that, the care put into immortalizing this Ring in recording media has made it one of the most “real”-sounding performances on disc. Here, you get the steerhorns and tuned anvils and metal bars that Wagner personally requested to be put into the score, in addition to other sound effects that would be impossible to realize in the theater. You can hear the violent thunder in the opening of Act III of Siegfried and the closing scene of Rheingold. I could go on about all these little details, but I leave that for you to witness yourself.

That said about its realistic audio qualities, I would like to discuss the merits of Solti’s conducting. It is true that while Solti had a heavy hand in this recording in comparison with conductors such as Karajan, Krauss, Bohm, and Boulez who exuded transparency in their readings, he brings everything in the score to life. He understands Wagner’s score well, and his reading is closer to Knappertsbusch on a good day, a method that harkens the traditional way of conducting Wagner. He also has good judgment as to where tempi changes must be made, as can be heard from the closing scene of Das Rheingold. The orchestration during Donner’s “Heda Hedo!” is simply ravishing, and the tempi that Solti uses and adjusts to sounds dramatically right. Wagner himself would have been proud. His understanding of the more complex and post-Tristan scores of Siegfried and Gotterdammerung are still unparalleled today. From the Mime Wanderer riddle scene to the Forging song to the Wotan Erda confrontation and the glorious love duet that ends the opera, Solti gets all the orchestral nuances perfectly. His Siegfried is so alive, that any recording after that can be considered below par. But if there was ever one recording that deserved the praise this Ring receives, it has to be Solti’s Gotterdammerung. From the haziness of the Norn scene to the Dawn love duet and the Gibichung hall music, and the Waltraute Brunnhilde dialogue, I think Solti captures this Act perfectly. Act 2 is done well too, with Gottlob Frick’s menacing Hagen and Neidlinger’s definitive Alberich creating a most sinister mood accompanied by Solti’s masterly conducting. The revenge trio that caps the act is perfectly executed by the Vienna Philharmonic, and I think that if it were not for the presence of Knappertsbusch’s recent Testament release with Varnay and Uhde, this would also probably be the best Act II on disc. Then we have Act III, the culmination of the Ring cycle. From the chattering of the Rhinemaidens to Siegfried’s death and funeral march to the glorious Immolation Scene, I think this Act III represents Wagner’s music at its greatest, and no other recording captures the essence of the final moments of the Ring with all its synthesis of the various leitmotifs in such a moving manner. This is, perhaps, the best conducted Ring of the studios, and on a good day, I would feel exceeds that of the Bayreuth rings. (Hey! I have my Wagner whims too, and on some days, I if tend to have a preference for Krauss, Karajan, Knappertsbusch, or Bohm…that is my preference! Chacun a son gout!)

Now for the cast. I have never seen such a glorious cast assembled in the recording studio such as this, and everything from Neidlinger’s Alberich, Nilsson’s Brunnhilde, Hotter and London’s Wotans, Windgassens’s Siegfried, Flagstad’s Rheingold Fricka and Ludwig’s Walkure Fricka, Hoffgen’s Erda, King’s Siegmund, Crespin’s Sieglinde, Frick’s Hagen and Hunding, Bohme’s characterful Fafner, Sutherland woodbird, Stolze’s Mime, and the chattery and lusty Walkures, Norns, and Rheinmaidens is simply a vocal treat. That said, these individual singers’ solo performances can be heard to greater advantages elsewhere, but nowhere are they captured better vocally than here. Of course, some singers such as Hotter are no longer in their prime, but what a magnificent performance he gives! His Wotan is so grand and noble that I think that the only Wotan who beats him is his younger self. Nilsson’s Brunnhilde is a force of nature. Her missile-like voice is fascinating, encompassing Brunnhilde’s vocal music with such ease that one would think Brunnhilde was a walk in the park. She is hands-down one of the greatest Brunnhildes ever, along with Astrid Varnay and Martha Modl. Siegfried here is sung by Windgassen, the tenor who single-handedly solved Bayreuth’s heldentenor shortage for more than a decade. His voice, of course, has aged, but he is such an intelligent artist that one cannot help but listen to his Siegfried artistically portrayed without any vocal problems that today’s many Siegfrieds encounter. James King is a most moving Siegmund, surpassed only by his Bohm interpretation and possibly Ramon Vinay on a good day, and his Sieglinde, Regine Crespin, is one of the most female and human singers ever to have brought the role to life. Christa Ludwig is the most sumptuous Fricka and Waltraute on disc, combining her great vocal beauty with her consummate artistry. Her singing here is nothing short of definitive. The Walkures are all great, the cast including two future Brunnhildes: Helga Dernesch and Berit Lindholm. The supporting cast of giants is also very good, with Kurt Bohme as a most characterful Fafner. I think that the Fasolt could have been sung better though. The Norns also consist of some of the most famous singers of the Wagnerian oeuvre, some of them taking the great roles in the years to come. Hoffgen sings Erda magnificently. My only quibble here is the casting choices used for Rheingold’s Rheintochters. They sound a bit old. They characterize their characters playfully, but one could wish that Solti had used the maidens singing for Karajan or Bohm’s recording. Otherwise, the cast is almost flawless.

Must this be your first Ring? With the care lavished on such a great project (Culshaw’s attention to the miniscule details in the score), Solti’s wonderful conducting, and a cast that truly represents the golden age of Wagner, I would say, this is an essential recording for anyone’s collection. It is possibly the greatest achievement in the recording studio, and in many ways, the greatest recording of the century.

Review by Andrew Freborg:

Meistersinger is the quintessential Wagner – Controversial/German/Dynamic. An experience of the Romantic in music and drama, again the Met does not disappoint with this latest entry in home DVD. Gorgeous traditional staging (recreating 16th century Nurnberg exquisitely), a solid cast, one of the finest orchestras, and quality packaging. The sets, color, costuming and overall staging is perhaps the finest I’ve seen – you WILL be taken to 16th century Nurnberg. The final scene of Act 3 is spectacular – a Medieval German feast for the eyes – with Wagners magnficient music.

The acting is superb with the characters all very human, and is coupled very well with strong voice performnce from all the cast – no weak links here. The orchestra at times (to me) came across a little “thin.”

Though many disagree – I find Levine bringing a richness and depth in his music direction (many complain of “plodding” tempos, etc). As a classical musician (viola) I have to disagree, and Levine is a bit more lively here than in many of his Wagner produtions. These Met releases for home DVD are like fine wines to be treasured over and over – and a wonderful refuge from the world.

Review by Doug Urquhart:

Let’s start with the technicalities. The picture and sound quality of this disk are superb!The picture is anamorphic wide screen (even though the box describes it as 4:3) and gives crystal-clear reproduction of Gil Wechsler’s ‘Old Master’ lighting effects. The DTS 5.1 sound faithfully reproduces the ambience of the Met (even including the guy with the cough, a few rows down on my left), and is outstanding for a live performance.

The performance? It’s the Met – what do you expect? Levine and the Met Orchestra were in top form, extracting every bit of humor and pathos from some of Wagner’s most beautiful music.

I must confess that I was worried that James Wotan Morris could handle the essential humanity of Sachs, but I needn’t have bothered – he was perfect. It was strange to see him singing with both eyes open, though.

Thomas Allen’s Beckmesser was a tour de force, reminding me of Hermann Prey. Not only does Allen sing well, but he is an excellent physical comedian. The scene in Sach’s workshop was hilarious. He also managed to convey Beckmesser’s malice – essential if he is not to be perceived as a pathetic victim.

Ben Heppner’s Walter was outstanding. It is said that nobody plays Walter well. Mr Heppner did. He’s the first good Walter I’ve ever seen.

Rene Pape’s Pogner was beautifully sung and acted, but I can’t help feeling that he looks a bit young for the part. Well, that’s my fault for not suspending disbelief properly – his performance was impeccable.

And now Karita Matilla. I’m probably going to be lynched by one of her rabid followers, but I don’t think she makes a particularly good Eva. Her voice was superb, and all that, but there has to be a chemistry between Eva and Sachs, and it just wasn’t there. I don’t think it was the fault of Morris, either.

My favorite video production of Die Meistersinger is the 1984 Bayreuth production with Weikl as Sachs, but unfortunately it isn’t available on DVD. Until it is, the Met Meistersinger will ably take its place.