"I see Die Meistersinger as the pivot and central point of Wagner's entire oeuvre. On the one hand it is a reaction to Tristan; on the other, he had found himself in a blind alley with Siegfried, and together those two works showed him the way out of it. The fascinating thing about Die Meistersinger is that you can find everything in it. Hero and anti-hero, comedy and tragedy, upper-class and lower-class lovers, burlesque and reflection, the old and the new, in short a whole world." – Christian Thielemann

The libretto was finished in January 1862, and Wagner finally completed the score in October 1867. Ultimately, Die Meistersinger is not only the satyr play to go with Tristan, but also desensitises it. We might almost say that after the most intoxicating chromatic narcosis in music history, Wagner provides the right smelling salts to counteract it. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg had its premiere in Munich on 21 June 1868. Wagner sat in state beside Ludwig II in the royal box of the National Theatre, and was enthusiastically acclaimed.

The recordings have been done during the Osterfestspiele in the Grosses Festspielhaus of Salzburg in April 2019.