To re-assure myself against memory doubts that were beginning to creep in, I sampled these scenes in two live recordings I happened to have to hand, a Met broadcast from Jan.,1953 under Reiner, and a Bayreuth, 1960 performance under Knappertsbusch. The Met gave us, again in order of vocal appearance, first Hans Hopf, a tenor of the Vogt-as-antidote sort, though by no means the worst; then the Eva of Victoria de los Angeles, whom I assume needs no valorizing description; then the solid contralto Herta Glaz (we also had in this part around this time such voices as Jean Madeira’s and Regina Resnik’s); and finally Richard Holm, a lyric tenor who soon recorded a Max in Der Freischütz under Böhm—on the light side for that role, yes, but it didn’t have him in trouble—and here he is as David. From Bayreuth, we hear Wolfgang Windgassen in one of his best recorded performances; the delectable Elizabeth Grūmmer, sounding positively Helden-ish in the context of the present performance; mezzo Elizabeth Schärtel, at moments clucky, but strong and characterful; and Gerhard Stolze, before his voice turned into the penetrating yowl that it was soon to become. Any reservations over particulars notwithstanding, and despite Reiner making any expansion of phrase out of the question for the Met contingent with his pushed tempi, both these quartets get the opera off to a confident and promising start. My memory doubts were eased.

With the entrance of Veit Pogner, in the person of Vitalij Kowaljow, we get the first impression of a principal whose voice seems of the appropriate size, security, and quality for his role. And those properties are evident as he progresses through the handsome setting of his music. But he intermittently misplaces one or another of them, partly through an insistence on the brighter side of his timbre (should a bass be afraid of the dark?), and more importantly by letting the line slacken when he tries to introduce a sensitive mezza-voce inflection—the idea is usually right, but the execution loses the sense of a controlled continuum between soft and loud, and makes these moments into flagged special effects rather than natural expressive developments. And at Pogner’s side, you’ll recall, is Beckmesser, with an assignment of substantial length that makes expressive demands of extraordinary variety, nuance, and range, and holds a crucial position as dramatic character. The singer here is Adrian Eröd, who presents a light, soft-textured baritone that is pleasant enough, but lacking in snap and bite. He is another artist who has the negative virtue of dispensing with the character-singer conventions of his part, but not the positive one of offering any interesting alternative—I could detect no progression in his state of mind, or any change of tactic, in the long Act 2 Serenade vs. “Jerum!” sequence. And then we have a Kothner (Levente Páll) with a high, almost baritenor timbre and a rapid bleat on any note that gives it time to emerge.

At last our Sachs (Georg Zeppenfeld) makes himself heard. Of course his Act 1 exchanges with the Masters offer little in the way of sustained singing. But at last we hear a voice of steady, clear tone, controlled vibrato, and unfettered emission, dealing deftly and pointedly with the rhetoric of these speeches. Knowing what is to come in the music of this great role, we have something to look forward to. And nearly all of our hopes are realized. This man can really sing. Throughout the intimidating length of this part, whether in the lyrical, introspective Flieder- and Wahn- monologues, the hearty calling-out of the “Jerum! Jerum!“, the inspirational, life-coaching solos of the songwriting session with Walther, the ironic sparring with Beckmesser, or the crowning orations of the final scene, the voice never falters in any mode— freely flowing legato, authoritative declamation, or naturally inflected conversation are all at Zeppenfeld’s beck and call. End to end, one cannot hear the part better sung, and though Zeppenfeld is already mature and experienced, given a voice in this superb working order it is exciting to contemplate what he might yet achieve.