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Wagner 1976 Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg 5 LP Box Set DG Mint

Box set with 5 records and booklet.  Vinyl in Mint condition and appear unplayed.

The box and booklet/libretto are also in Mint condition. Comes with a 70-page libretto/booklet, texts in German, French and English.

Label: Deutsche Grammophon‎– 2713 011

Format: Box Set 5 × Vinyl, LP, Stereo 

Country: Germany

Period: Romantic 

Written: 1862-1867; Germany 

Date of Recording: 1976 

Language: German

Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner

Conductor:  Eugen Jochum

Orchestra/Ensemble:  Berlin Deutsche Oper Chorus,  Berlin Deutsche Oper Orchestra 

Chorus Master: Walter Hagen-Groll

Performers:

Miomir Nikolic (Bass), Roland Hermann (Baritone), Peter Lagger (Bass), 

Peter Maus (Tenor), Klaus Lang (Baritone), Christa Ludwig (Mezzo-soprano), 

Ivan Sardi (Bass), Victor von Halem (Bass), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Baritone), 

Horst Laubenthal (Tenor), Placido Domingo (Tenor), Catarina Ligendza (Soprano), 

Karl-Ernst Mercker (Tenor), Martin Vantin (Tenor), Loren Driscoll (Tenor), 

Gerd Feldhoff (Baritone), Roberto Banuelas (Baritone) 

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (German: "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg") is a music drama (or opera) in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas commonly performed, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed in Munich, on 21 June 1868. The  story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of Master Singers, an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depiction of the Nuremberg of the era and the traditions of the master-singer guild. One of the main characters, the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, is based on a historical figure, Hans Sachs (1494–1576), the most famous of the master-singers.  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg occupies a unique place in Wagner's oeuvre. It is the only comedy among his mature operas and is also unusual among his works in being set in a historically well-defined time and place rather than in a mythical or legendary setting. It is the only mature Wagner opera based on an entirely original story, devised by Wagner himself, and in which no supernatural or magical powers or events are in evidence. It incorporates many of the operatic conventions that Wagner had railed against in his essays on the theory of opera: rhymed verse, arias, choruses, a quintet, and even a ballet.

REVIEW: I strongly recommend the conductor Eugen Jochum’s stirring and colorful account of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,” first released in 1976, with the chorus and orchestra of Deutsche Oper, Berlin.  Jochum is unerring in building long Wagnerian climaxes and resolving them. The cast is the most consistent yet assembled on record. The key to the set is the searching and highly individual Hans Sachs of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.  The strong cast also includes a fresh-voiced Plácido Domingo as Walther.  Love his music or hate his personality, the one thing you can’t do with Wagner is ignore him.  However petty and malicious the man could be, his artistic achievement was huge, not only in sheer physical bulk but also in ambition, imagination and invention.