# Solti on Die Meistersinger........



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

From the booklet included in his 2nd recording of this opera.

"Die Meistersinger is the only opera by Wagner which I've recorded twice. It is now more than 20 years since I recorded it for the first time and over 25 years since I conducted it in the theater. But then a couple of years ago, quite by chance, I heard Pogner's first act monologue on the radio, and I found it so beautiful, so moving, that tears came into my eyes and I felt this urgent desire to perform the work again.
In recent years I have conducted more Mozart and Verdi than ever before, and, as a result, my approach to Wagner has changed. With its many monologues and dialogues. Die Meistersinger is above all a conversation piece. I feel that it should be light, that it should be approached almost like chamber music, and that the orchestra must never dominate the singers. It was this aspect of Die Meistersinger, Wagner's wonderful lightness of touch, that i wanted to recapture.
The advantage of a concert performance is that you can achieve maximum clarity, so I was very happy that we opted for this solution. We had an absolutely first class cast for these performances in Chicago, with an exceptional team of soloists, and of course an orchestra and chorus of superb quality.
After so many years, I have again fallen in love with this opera, which I think is a true masterpiece. Like a Mozart opera, or Verdi's Falstaff, there's not a single bar too many, and absolutely nothing at all you might wish to be different. That's a criterion of a great masterpiece. I think I love Die Meistersinger more than anything else which Wagner wrote. It's such a positive, life-giving piece. It doesn't deal with gods or heroes, the characters are the ordinary citizens of Nuremberg, everyday people, and I love them."
Georg Solti


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It's always nice to hear an appreciation of an opera from someone who has known it intimately from the inside and thought about how to present every detail of its score. I don't think my backside, parked for five hours in a theater seat, would agree that the opera contains not a bar too many, but curled up in a chair with a pot of tea I'd have no inclination to argue with Solti.

_Meistersinger_ is astoundingly rich in musical and verbal detail, and in its presentation of human relationships, attitudes, foibles and aspirations it's one of the world's great comedies. We sense with all Wagner's works that he needed to write them; in this case a comedy of everyday life is the necessary yang to _Tristan_'s yin, and just as we see a spot of each of those polarities inside its opposite in the traditional symbol, we find a spot of _Tristan_ - its prelude quoted - in _Meistersinger_ as Sachs invokes that work's passion and tragedy and steers the young Walther and Eva - and himself - away from the fated lovers' illusion of bliss.

Amusing, touching, and wise, both intimate and large in scale and compass, _Meistersinger_ is, as Solti says, a great masterpiece.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Woodduck is always a tough act to follow, but I agree with both him (as usual) and Solti (not so usual).

I haven't heard Solti's second recording, but it must be an interesting approach to the score. I like Solti in loud, bombastic Strauss and Mozart (which he conducted in a very different style to other composers). I agree that Meistersinger and Falstaff are two great works of genius and they have more in common than just being the final comedies by their respective composers. There was another thread in which different people here discussed the relative merits of the two and as I said at the time I find it impossible to choose one for being greater than the other.

One thing that Solti mentions somewhat bemuses me. Can we really say that there isn't a note wasted in Mozart's operas when we don't really have definitive editions of them and the Da Ponte trilogy ones are usually performed with at least some of the traditional cuts?

N.


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## Andrew Cityof (10 mo ago)

I purchased this recording a couple months back and found that same paragraph both instructive as to Solti's thinking about the performance practice, but also charming as to his enjoyment of the work. I've found so much satisfaction listening to/watching Der Meistersinger in the last 6 months or so and in turn found his last 2 sentences you quoted above delightful!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> the necessary yang to _Tristan_'s yin


And so we have a _Romantic sense of balance_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Itullian said:


> I feel that it should be light, that it should be approached almost like chamber music


like this?:


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> like this?:


Exactly like that but with less reticence and a touch more exuberance.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Despite his protestations, I still prefer the earlier Solti Meistersinger but admittedly that has as much to do with a strong preference for Norman Bailey's Sachs.


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