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Description:
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is Wagner's only comedy, a Wagner opera that will appeal to many who don't usually care for Wagner operas. It is handsomely staged by the Australian Opera in a witty, musically polished interpretation. The characters (medieval German bourgeois craftsmen and artists) are recognizable types you might still see today: three-dimensional, warm, funny. Except for the villainous Beckmesser (Wagner's caricature of the music critic Hanslick), the people in Die Meistersinger are relatively free of the kind of obsessions that haunt so many characters in other Wagner operas. This is, among other things, an opera about the nature of music, and it gives the composer opportunities, which he uses brilliantly, to show off his technical mastery. Conductor Charles Mackerras and a well-chosen cast, including Helen Doese, Donald McIntyre, Paul Frey, and John Pringle, meet the music's challenges effectively, though there are some signs of vocal fatigue in the last act. --Joe McLellan
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