Ostensibly Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg tells a humorous tale about artistically inclined craftsmen. Goldsmith Veit Pogner promises his daughter Eva's hand in marriage to the winner of a song contest, to which three men are potentially eligible. But upon closer inspection, what is at first glance a harmless farce in a middle-class setting emerges as a profound social analysis. Wagner uses his protagonists to show how a community deals with tradition and those who break with it and just how much innovation and deviation from the norm it can tolerate – as well as to examine what value society places, and should place, on art.
Extra features:
Cast Gallery
The Making of ‘‘Die Meistersinger’’
‘A 'Meistersinger' that's on an entirely new Wagnerian scale... It is full of smart ideas and moments of effective theater. ‘ The Washington Post
Running time 4 hours 45 mins Region code All regions
Video codec AVC/MPEG-4
Disc size BD50
Picture format 1080i High Definition / 16:9
Sound format 2.0 LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS digital surround
Menu language EN
Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/ES
Classical Review
9th November 2010
“this production revolves around Beckmesser, and Michael Volle puts in an exceptional performance...I would urge even the sceptics to take this production seriously...A complex and troubling but also consummate and satisfying experience: even on DVD it leaves a lasting impression.”
March 2011
“Katharina Wagner at first presents Walther von Stolzing as a paint-spraying performance artist and Beckmesser as a retentive, Reclam-photocopying pedant...This nicely observed updating would be enough to sustain some productions for a whole evening. But, for Katharina Wagner, this is just the tip of the iceberg...as all stage productions should be, this is 200 per cent a Meistersinger to see.”
March 2011
“[Volle's Beckmesser] is so consistently alert, so wary of traditional caricature, so mellifluous in sound, and so well acted that it is, in fact, almost plausible to see him as the opera's hero...Franz Hawlata is a refreshingly youthful Sachs (which makes the Sachs-Eva-Walther triangle more affecting)”
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