Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - DVD

ENGLISH

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (OA1041D) (2008)<br /> <br /> Franz Hawlata (Hans Sachs); Artur Korn (Veit Pogner); Michael Volle (Sixtus Beckmesser); Klaus Florian Vogt (Walther Von Stolzing); Norbert Ernst (David); Michaela Kaune (Eva); Bayreuth Festival Orchestra & Chorus; Sebastian Weigle<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> "'Meistersinger' that's on an entirely new Wagnerian scale...it is full of smart ideas and moments of effective theater." (The Washington Post)<br /> <br /> "...as all stage productions should be, this is 200 per cent a Meistersinger to see." (Gramophone)