Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times (01.12.2003)
Can Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg be washed clean of all that happened to it during the 20th century? At least in the German-speaking world, few opera houses would dare to try.
But Nikolaus Lehnhoff's new Meistersinger dares to suggest that there's nothing to apologise for. It strips off the obligatory interpretative layers of recent years, presenting the piece as pure and worthy. Wagner's "holy German art", apparently, is about the independence of art from politics, about democracy and innovation and respect. Not about chauvinism or xenophobia.
This Meistersinger is visually stunning, beautifully crafted, detailed and never overdone. In the end it is also depressingly inconclusive. History happened, and it wil l take more than beauty to make us forget.
Peter Seiffert was a Rolls Royce of a Stolzing, his voice huge and unfettered, natural and free. Michael Volle was a revelation as Beckmesser, lithe and charismatic, delivering some of the evening's most beautiful singing.
To rob the role of its caricature is both subtly subversive and healing. Matti Salminen brought a vast paternal warmth to the role of Pogner, Christoph Strehl was a fresh-toned, winning David. Casting Jose van Dam as Hans Sachs could have been a coup a few years back; now it is a disappointment, however impressively he manages the remnants of his once-great voice.
Franz Welser-Möst began the overture briskly but infused the third act prelude with funereal gloom. Everything is thought through, often startlingly intimate, never bombastic. Presented like this, the music itself is the work's best defence against all charges.