Whoever wins the singing competition, will win the fair maiden's hand in marriage. The race is on!Whoever wins the singing competition, will win the fair maiden's hand in marriage. The race is on!Whoever wins the singing competition, will win the fair maiden's hand in marriage. The race is on!
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- ConnectionsVersion of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1971)
Featured review
Excellent despite a couple of small flaws
The cast quality of this MEISTERSINGER, performed by the Australian Opera, covers the whole range from deathly dull to outstanding. Deathly dull are David and Fritz Kothner; not much more to say about them. In the middling range Paul Frey as Walther and Helena Doese as Eva sing their lines but they're both kind of boring; also, Donald Shanks does a nice, workmanlike job as Pogner but no more than that. to outstanding (Jonathan Pringle's hilarious Beckmesser and Donald McIntyre's character-defining Hans Sachs).
Overall, the production seems to lack polish and professionalism, and the supporting ensembles - the chorus and the incidental characters - are pretty obviously under-rehearsed. The female singers in the chorus of apprentices who mock David do not look like boys at all. And when Paul Frey rushes off after being rejected by the masters at the end of Act 1, he snags a large part of the scenery and knocks it over. The visual aspects of some of the singers are wrong: David should not tower over Walther as he does, and Eva should not be so ... well, maybe "abundant" is the polite word; she looks more like a matron than like a desired object.
Really, I'd rate this video much lower than 8 out of 10, if not for McIntyre's definitive portrayal of Sachs and Pringle's engaging Beckmesser. McIntyre may be the only Hans Sachs on video who correctly portrays Sachs visually, and in spite of a few occasional moments of vocal uncertainty he sounds commanding and multi-dimensional: wise, sympathetic, avuncular, funny, and wistful. Other Sachses such as Bernd Weikl, Wolfgang Brendl, Jose van Dam, and James Morris, play him as lively and energetic, moving around the stage with rapid gait; only McIntyre seems to understand that Sachs is a craggy, very-late-middle-aged man, still spry enough to hammer the soles of shoes late at night, but definitely in the emeritus phase of life. He has loved, and suffered the loss of his wife and children, and slowed down; now he's passing the torch to the young lovers, and gracefully accepting his twilight like the Wanderer in SIEGFRIED. McIntyre has this aspect of the character nailed. But he also gives Sachs a lively sense of humor and keen insight.
Jonathan Pringle's approach to the role of Beckmesser seems light-weight by contrast with some of the virtuoso Beckmessers available on video. I'm thinking of long-time lyric master-crooner Hermann Prey, and, the great Eike-Wilm Schulte whose beautiful, free, penetrating, connected precision instrument is a miracle of nature (IMHO). Pringle is, by contrast, a clown, but he's a great clown, comical in every gesture, a laugh riot from beginning to end. His discomfited facial expressions and disdainful gestures reminded of the British comedic actor Rowan Atkinson playing "Blackadder".
Overall, the production seems to lack polish and professionalism, and the supporting ensembles - the chorus and the incidental characters - are pretty obviously under-rehearsed. The female singers in the chorus of apprentices who mock David do not look like boys at all. And when Paul Frey rushes off after being rejected by the masters at the end of Act 1, he snags a large part of the scenery and knocks it over. The visual aspects of some of the singers are wrong: David should not tower over Walther as he does, and Eva should not be so ... well, maybe "abundant" is the polite word; she looks more like a matron than like a desired object.
Really, I'd rate this video much lower than 8 out of 10, if not for McIntyre's definitive portrayal of Sachs and Pringle's engaging Beckmesser. McIntyre may be the only Hans Sachs on video who correctly portrays Sachs visually, and in spite of a few occasional moments of vocal uncertainty he sounds commanding and multi-dimensional: wise, sympathetic, avuncular, funny, and wistful. Other Sachses such as Bernd Weikl, Wolfgang Brendl, Jose van Dam, and James Morris, play him as lively and energetic, moving around the stage with rapid gait; only McIntyre seems to understand that Sachs is a craggy, very-late-middle-aged man, still spry enough to hammer the soles of shoes late at night, but definitely in the emeritus phase of life. He has loved, and suffered the loss of his wife and children, and slowed down; now he's passing the torch to the young lovers, and gracefully accepting his twilight like the Wanderer in SIEGFRIED. McIntyre has this aspect of the character nailed. But he also gives Sachs a lively sense of humor and keen insight.
Jonathan Pringle's approach to the role of Beckmesser seems light-weight by contrast with some of the virtuoso Beckmessers available on video. I'm thinking of long-time lyric master-crooner Hermann Prey, and, the great Eike-Wilm Schulte whose beautiful, free, penetrating, connected precision instrument is a miracle of nature (IMHO). Pringle is, by contrast, a clown, but he's a great clown, comical in every gesture, a laugh riot from beginning to end. His discomfited facial expressions and disdainful gestures reminded of the British comedic actor Rowan Atkinson playing "Blackadder".
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- ColonelPuntridge
- Aug 6, 2019
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- The Mastersingers of Nuremburg
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- Runtime4 hours 37 minutes
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