Maitres chanteurs de Nuremberg

Description

Recording Wagner's operas has long presented insurmountable technical difficulties, as the early microphones could not capture the entirety of Wagnerian sound. The Electrola company took on this challenge in 1938 in Dresden and recorded an entire act of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which was on the program that summer. Since the opera lasts 5 hours and a record side of that time was 4 and a half minutes, they limited themselves to the third act, deemed the most interesting. The acoustics of the "Semperoper" in Dresden, before its total destruction in 1944, were considered the best in all of Europe. The direction of Karl Böhm and the excellence of the soloists and choirs completed the rest: an extraordinary recording, captured on 15 discs, which modern techniques have managed to restore and which evokes our astonishment, our admiration, but also our pleasure.