Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg : K.Wagner, Weigle / Bayreuther Festspiele, Hawlata, Kaune, K.F.Vogt, etc (2008 Stereo)(2DVD)

Bayreuth Festival, 2008
Richard Wagner: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG

Hans Sachs - Franz Hawlata
Veit Pogner - Artur Korn
Kunz Vogelgesang - Charles Reid
Konrad Nachtigall - Rainer Zaun
Sixtus Beckmesser - Michael Volle
Fritz Kothner - Markus Eiche
Balthasar Zorn - Edward Randall
Ulrich Eisslinger - Hans-Jurgen Lazar
Augustin Moser - Stefan Heibach
Hermann Ortel - Martin Snell
Hans Schwarz - Andreas Macco
Hans Foltz - Diogenes Randes
Walther von Stolzing - Klaus Florian Vogt
David - Norbert Ernst
Eva - Michaela Kaune
Magdalene - Carola Guber
Ein Nachtwachter - Friedemann Rohlig

Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Sebastian Weigle, conductor

Katharina Wagner, stage director
Tilo Steffens, stage and costume designer
Michaela Barth, costume designer
Andreas Gruter, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, 2008

Bonus:
- Cast gallery
- The Making of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 4 hours 45 mins
No. of Discs: 2

Ostensibly Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg 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. ( Opus Arte )