Alas, pw, I don't think that the August 1981 ENO "Tristan & Isolde" was broadcast because it clashed with the release of the Decca WNO set.   I do agree that The Coli production was better in every respect.   I'll risk a finger-wagging from the Mods by trotting out, again, the disastrous end to Act 1, at the first performance, as the sailors traipsed on to the stage in 'Carry On...' mode and brought the house down with delirious laughter, instantly wrecking the ecstatic pairing between Remedios & Gray.  The movement group were instantly sacked by Lord Harewood and the replacement team included a well known moderator!

I may be subject to correction here, too, but I have a feeling that the earlier broadcast of "Mastersingers" didn't include Alberto Remedios as Walter.  However, the original Sadler's Wells cast have been included in the forthcoming Chandos release.    "A consummation devoutly to be wished".

It certainly wasn't Remedios in the broadcast - but I can't remember the name of the tenor.

I've a vague memory that the ENO production was broadcast - because I have a feeling that the performance I attended (a glance in my score reveals that it was 22 August 1981) was being relayed live, and I seem to recall irritation that, having booked some time before, I'd inadvertently hit the broadcast night.  But memory could be playing tricks here.

Actually, not quite, Stanley. The Moderator in question joined the Movement Group in 1977, ostensibly for a year, but left the following February having been offered a decent contract for the Shaftesbury Theatre revival of Kismet (First Beggar/Second Policeman u/s Caliph). The last production he did during that period was the John Copley Carmen, which was televised: although he was not supposed to be participating, he ended up being rather heavily featured in a variety of small roles, particularly in the TV broadcast, where he and two others were used with the principals to illustrate the back-story in stills during the orchestral passages. Someone, somewhere, must have a copy....

Kismet suffered the usual curse of the Shaftesbury, and despite its luxury casting closed before the end of summer: he went straight from that into rep., and after that started his first stint in Hi-fi retailing. It was whilst he was doing that that John Copley asked for him to be engaged for his production of Massenet's Manon at the Coli, because they needed an actor rather more thuggish than the fayer-than-average Movement Group could provide. ENO acceded, and whilst he was working on that, he was invited to return later in the year for Aïda and the Julius Caesar. By the end of that, he'd also been booked for JC's production at the ROH of Lucrezia Borgia, which was to be Sutherland's swan song. He was released ahead of rehearsals because he'd been offered the cover to Che in Evita, and they kindly agreed that it was more important for his career.

By the time Julius Caesar was revived and filmed, he'd notched up fifteen months in Evita, worked for Birmingham Rep. at the 1981 Edinburgh Festival and their home base, and opened in Singin' in the Rain in its first run at the Palladium. He wasn't released this time, so missed the film, though was called into the rehearsals because there was one very complicated sequence in the 'Hunting Aria' which no one was able to puzzle out from the reference video (which, for union reasons, were dubbed by a rehearsal pianist rather than have the cost of paying the whole cast and orchestra a session fee), and for which he was apparently the only person could still remember very cue. So the last time he actually appeared for ENO was before the 1980s had even begun, though as a featured (and credited) actor rather than a member of the Movement Group....

To return to the topic: I saw that Mastersingers in its run during the first season at the Coli, very definitely with Alberto. Pretty magnificent all round....

  Congratulations, Pim!          Fortuitously, I think it will shortly be a case of:

          "A double blessing is a double grace", eh?          

     The 4 CD set of the Goodall/Mastersingers was lovingly lifted from my doormat this morning.   The cover is printed in white, black, red and gold with a top, left hand corner inset  ' - LIVE - Sadler's Wells, Feb 1968'.    This is one aspect of the 60s which many still remember!

The first surprise was the realisation that this was also a stereo recording and it must have been among the first in a new era of broadcasting.   Occasional signs of tape hiss but hearing the Act 1 Prelude was heart-achingly beautiful.   Instant memories of a particular buzz of anticipation at the time, even on the 38/73 bus as it climbed Rosebery Avenue.

The 160 pp booklet has many attractive production photographs - and how young they all looked!   A good choice, too, to invite Nicholas Payne to write the liner notes.   He writes about attending a talk which MD Stephen Arlen gave to the first ever Arts Admin Course at the London Polytechnic in Mortimer Street.   Payne was part of the initial student intake and he asked Arlen what he expected of his new Mastersingers.   He replied: 'Either it will be a catastrophe, or it will be the greatest success in the history of Sadler's Wells.'    'The following evening, 31st Jan 1968, another of the students, Brian McMaster, and I stood next to each other for over five hours in the five shilling (25p) Upper Circle Slips and witnessed history being made.'       

More than 10 years later, Payne worked with Goodall on his production of "Tristan" for WNO and being asked what the opera was about, replied that he had not yet penetrated its dark heart.   He thought the other mature Wagner operas were easier to understand.   The Ring was about nature; Parsifal about compassion.   For him, Mastersingers was by then in the past, and he did not want to conduct it again.

Nicholas Payne's closing comments are most perceptive.   He writes, 'No doubt, this or that passage has been better sung or played, and will be in the future; but I think that Goodall sensed that the generosity of spirit which inhabited Sadler's Wells and its company in the final years at that theatre would never be recaptured.'             Yes, precisely.     It was that generosity of spirit which I still remember so well.

I'm wondering if you in fact mean the lack thereof, or was actually hearing the words too much to bear (which I'm afraid I could well imagine)?... 

I'm glad I asked! Exactly as I imagined it then. 

I've just ordered it, Stanley.  My curiosity got the better of me (as did your impressive soft sell job). 

Won't have time to listen to it for a couple of weeks, though, but I'll give it some attention when (and if) I return from Israel.