I felt like listening to something exciting and loud.
It’s not my #1 Planets and the conductor is extremely controversial but I do like the album a great deal. The CSO brass, as usual, are frightening!
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Very good ´Meistersinger´ by Kubelik indeed. If you like this more oratorio-like approach, I strongly recommend Janowski´s reading:
Albert Dohmen is in my understanding the best Sachs ever and so are orchestra and choir. Robert Dean Smith as Stolzing is the weak point of this recording but somehow it is fitting the concept.
Have seen it live more than 20 times and have to say it is one of the most thrilling, amusing and entertaining operas among the 4h+ compositions. Even in Bayreuth people are laughing like kids during the performance. If only one manages to be prepared for all this theoretical stuff in Act I which is not self-explanatory.
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I’ve never seen it live, except a telecast from the Met.
It has become one of my favorite operas to listen to, however.
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True confession; I like to listen to ‘Meistersinger’ mid-summer, and when I do, in addition to the splendid Kubelik recording, I still love this earlier Bayreuth account. Karajan achieves such concentration in the Act 3 Prelude, despite astonishing coughing, it is almost magical.
But in my Wagner ‘year cycle’, it is almost ‘Parsifal’ time…
But speaking of Wagner…
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I don’t usually pay much attention to the ‘Wesendonck Lieder’, turning instead to the more formed work of ‘Tristan’. Yet hearing DiDonato in ‘Im Treibhaus’, on the radio, was quite arresting. Her lighter tone was just gorgeous, and Il Pomo d’Oro conveyed the weighty sadness of Act 3 of ‘Tristan’ quite magically.
Don’t know if we might hope for DiDonato in some more Wagner or Strauss, but, for now, this is wonderful music.
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what is your Wagner calendar cycle?
The only Met performance I nearly walked out of was a “Der Rosenkavalier”. And, I had higher hopes for Susanne Mentzer as Octavian. This was in the early 90s.
Karajan´s reading has its ´magical moments´, but I find the cast to be very uneven, the conducting imprecise to blurred rhythmically, and the recording somewhat artificial at times. Not my cup of tea.
Kubelik is very good in holding orchestra and choir together and many scenes are exemplary. I cannot live with Bernd Weikl´s voice here and the recording to my taste lacks atmosphere and drive at times.
Again my favorite would be Janowski in spite of not really sounding like a Wagner Musikdrama or some broad religious piece but rather some humanistic chamber opera with superbly transparent symphonic approach (check the choir’s precision!):
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Agree with both…the Karajan version has something quite special about it…it is incredibly beautiful, too.
But I cannot abandon my Martha Mödl fixation, and so go for an earlier Knappertsbusch:
But also, I think in his last recorded version, the Orfeo one, with Vickers he may be that bit more compelling, despite slightly inferior sound:
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It’s quite profound…
‘Parsifal’ at Easter
‘Meistersinger’ midsummer.
Yup, that’s it 
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I think there is room for both. I remember a friend seeing ‘Parsifal’ in Berlin, where the Grail was raw liver! Best production I ever saw had Thomas Quasthoff as Amfortas, with the actual wound of the thalidomide scandal laid bare in the Act 1 bathing sequence. Utterly stunning in Act 3, and true Musikdrama.
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Absolutely, and I personally enjoy the beauty and complexity of this piece much more if it’s played and sung with utter precision and some more attention to detail and rhythm rather than the big sound machine in Karajan´s style. Does not have to be as intimate as Janowski´s reading but we should take into consideration that it was Wagner´s only composition being drafted after he worked in the Bayreuth acoustical environment with its extreme audibly clarity of voices and strings as well as a completely new aesthetic of mixed sounds.
If I recall it correctly, the best combination of conducting precision and dramatic approach was Barenboim´s version in Berlin State Opera staged by Harry Kupfer. The picture of Falk Struckmann as Amfortas ripping apart his bloody clothes standing on a ramp above the zombie-like rioting knights is chilling. It is available on Youtube but it is really dystopic, not necessarily doing the composition justice (partly due to Struckmann´s and Tomlinson´s singing).
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Sure…one get become allergic to Karajan’s meddling.
But I love Kupfer! That looks incredible…will check it out; thank you!
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What about ´Das Liebesverbot´ for Carnival Monday? But be warned, it is truly a bad opera, Wagner´s worst work by far. Have seen it live only once and it can be the longest 2.5h ever…
Welcome. But another warning: It is dystopic and depressing, no sign of humanity, redemption or compassion anywhere. Kupfer´s final picture is somewhat of a comment to that often overlooked aspect of the work.
I can’t go there…I have days where I find ‘Hollander’ quite troubling.
But as it is February, and next week is Valentine’s Day, surely romance is in the air? I suddenly find myself wanting to listen to Gounod, and ‘Romeo et Juliette’. Impossibly romantic, in that both die young, but what else?
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Now that has got me interested…
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We need a Ring discussion, and an optimal time of year to listen. Perhaps Götterdämmerung should be timed to coincide with Election Day.
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Fully support that idea, and i am ready to play the role of the leading heretic. As I mostly despise the work of whoever is seen as a conducting superbeing and the ever-turning reference recordings (Solti, Karajan, Böhm, Furtwängler - you name ´em…) as much as what my personal heros were making out of it (Boulez, Janowski, Barenboim, Haenchen, Janowski again, Rattle…).