Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

"This is a well-chosen cast and of the six principal roles I am familiar first-hand with the on-stage work of Georg Zeppenfeld, Klaus Florian Vogt, Vitalij Kowaljow, Adrian Eröd and Christa Mayer ... Christian Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden assuredly, pulling his forces together with a keen feeling for dramatic balance. Ever alert to changing staging situations ... I find Thielemann's pacing persuasive and there is plenty of impetus when required, whilst he is careful to not drown out the singers ... In impressive form, too, are the combined forces of the Staatsopernchor Dresden and Bachchor Salzburg, unreservedly compelling and discernibly well-unified ... This competes with a number of established recordings I know from the 1950s-70s by justifiably famous Wagnerians - Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, Rafael Kubelik and Eugen Jochum. Having already played it a number of times (despite its length), I rate it extremely highly; nevertheless, it ranks alongside rather than surpasses those treasured recordings that I have listed".

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"The more recent performance is somthing of a coronation for Bernard Haitink's embattled but admired music directorship of the old Covent Garden. The performance, his happiest Wagner outing to date on disc, shows him to be a listening accompanist and precise balancer of orchestral textures".

"If Janowski's Holländer proved a performance of mixed vocal blessings, his Meistersinger is an altogether more accomplished achievement ... with Albert Dohmen and Robert Dean Smith ... Die Meistersinger is essentially an ensemble piece, and Janowski never lets you forget this with the transparent textures he draws from his outstanding Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin ... A set that keen Wagnerians will want to hear, even if it does not displace the classic Kempe and Karajan sets from their pedestals".

"This second step in the 72-year old Polish maestro's bicentennial Berlin concert cycle of mature Wagner is a swift, light, comic reading of the score ... On this particular June evening Albert Dohmen sounded at home across the whole spectrum of Sachs's poetry, wistfulness and wit ... Janowski's achievement is to have recreated a genuine comic feel for the piece".