Metropolitan Opera Archives

A fresh census of Nuremburg's population at the Metropolitan's latest nose count for "Die Meistersinger" revealed two new arrivals: One was Phyllis Curtin as daughter to Veit Pogner, the other a semi-ardent candidate for her hand in marriage, Sixtus Beckmesser, portrayed by Geraint Evans. When first heard at Covent Garden in the early Fifties, Evans was Night Watchman to a fine Beckmesser named Benno Kusche; out of these and other observations he has evolved a characterization wholly his own. It is a study on the order of his Falstaff and Leporello, a superlative instance of a man with more mind than voice making one indifferent to such imbalance. He has, actually, more voice than the average Beckmesser and a mind to use it productively, in projection of a "Stadtsehreiber" who is whimsically pedantic and slightly effeminate at the same time. Taken together, they provide shades of meaning that Wagner might have imagined but which are seldom realized to the extent achieved by Evans.

With the exception of Sandor Kónya's dependable Walther, a solid Pogner by John Macurdy, and Loren Driscoll's fine David, the rest of the performance was, on the whole, of a lower artistic order. Miss Curtin has put her shrewd mind to the problem of Eva with typical thoroughness, but this is not an Eva voice, whether relaxed or intense. Its beam is too narrow, its temperature too low. Joseph Rosenstock conducted not only to a King's but an Emperor's taste (that being the visiting Haile Selassie and party).

Search by season: 1966-67

Search by title: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,

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