You've whetted my appetite for both Israel and the recording there, Stanley.  If, by some chance, it does arrive before my flight on Wednesday, I shall put it on my iPod and enjoy both simultaneously (it might just cover the bus journey from Jerusalem to Eilat!) 

I saw Norman Bailey sing the Landgrave in Tannhauser for Opera North back in 1993.  At the time, I recall being shocked that a 'star baritone' should be singing for a provincial opera company...but I subsequently learned that this is very common when singers get older and they begin to scale back their repertoire of roles.  I expect he's (hopefully happily) retired by now. 


Btw, you wouldn't have a clue about travelling in Israel on the Sabbath (in case you missed my thread), would you? 

 I was intrigued by your posting, pw, and have done some spadework this morning to see if I could trace the source of cuts in the Goodall, Mastersingers.    I've browsed through John Lucas's biography, 'Reggie' (1993), page 158:         "The opera was to have been given complete, but timings for the acts at the first dress rehearsal made it clear that the performances would not be over until long after midnight.   In setting the starting time at 6pm," (why, for heavens sake not earlier, as they did at The Coli  some months later?)  "the company had not taken into account Goodall's broad approach to the score.   The management feared that Goodall might walk out when he heard that the opera would have to be cut by 25 minutes, but he accepted the situation without protest.   He was a more practical man of the theatre than some were prepared to admit."     Did he, indeed?    I've also done a comparative with other recordings and, even allowing for his 'broad approach' the difference is substantial.

Amusing that Solti attended a later performance at The Wells and was provided with refreshments in Stephen Arlen's office.   He praised the production, the performances, even the programmes,but made no mention of the conducting.    A few years later, Norman Bailey, unexpectedly sang Sachs in a new production at Covent Garden, conducted by Solti.  German baritone, Hubert Hoffmann, had been due to sing the role but had fallen ill and Bailey took his place at the premiere.   Desmond Shawe-Taylor wrote that Bailey's Sachs was 'the outstanding success of the performance'.     Lucas continued: "Comparisons were made with Goodall's conducting of the work, though not necessarily to Solti's detriment.   William Mann wrote in The Times:   

         George Solti's reading on Friday abounded in nervous vitality, bustling expectancy, highly
         coloured detail (especially delightful in David's catalogue of the approved Modes.)  In the
         Sadler's Wells performances Reginald Goodall's motto is the Hound of Heaven's "deliberate speed,
         majestic instancy;" his interpretation was a ravishing dream of a long-dead golden age -
         and therewith, inevitably, one sometimes wished it did not all the time sound so sleepy.  Solti's
         Nurembergers are wide-awake and full of energy, what the music lacks in his reading
         is magical serenity, at the end of Act 1, in Eva's visit to Sachs in Act 2, and then the
         night-scented sleep-music associated with the Night Watchman."

"This may have been the occasion when Solti, coming up from the pit to take a curtain-call, remarked in exasperation to Norman Feasey and the staff producer Ande Anderson, 'Well, that's another good review for Reggie Goodall.'

A comparative with other recordings based on a 4 CD set:  CD 1  Act 1:    CD 2  Act 1 (conclusion) and Act 2:      CD 3 and 4  Act 3:

     Herbert von Karajan (1951)        Kempe (1958)        Solti (1976)             Solti   (1997)

     CD 1    69mins 52 secs           66 mins 54 secs      71 mins 41 secs         68 mins 04 secs
       "  2    73  "    30    "            73    "   32    "        74   "    06   "            72    "   54  "
       "  3    71  "    36    "            68    "   45    "        72   "    24   "            68    "   12  "
       "  4    52  "    30    "            50    "   26    "        50   "    56   "            49    "   54

   TOTAL   267mins 28 secs        259 mins 37 secs     269 mins 07 secs        259   "   04   "


     Sawallisch (1994)                  Goodall (1968)

     CD 1    69 mins 19 secs         74 mins 34 secs
      "   2    71   "    16   "           79    "   54    "
      "   3    66   "    31   "           76    "   50    "
      "   4    49   "    36   "           61    "   26    "

    TOTAL  256 mins 42 secs      292 mins 44 secs

     Were the agreed cuts ever made by Reggie?

     My only hiccup, in the calculations, arose when I included my all-time favourite, the Munchen 1967 Kubelik performance and I was taken aback when the timings reached 297 mins but I'd overlooked the bonus historic material with Franz Volker, Melchior and Kipnis in 'Die Meistersinger', in various productions.

     A fascinating bit of research and I trust that my manual calculations are accurate!  Finally, I'll always opt for Reggie's 'magical serenity'.     It shone radiantly in 1968 and it remains in the Chandos recording.
   

Re: the 'cut' - I've not read anything about this online.  Where does pw get his info from?

My copy has just arrived! I'm currently transferring it to itunes and from thence to my ipod. 

Browsing through the booklet, I came across the following (mis)translated couplet:

Masters: 'Yes, gracious singer, take thine own!
             Thy song hath won the Masters' crown!'


 


And people wonder why I HATE opera in translation!

Don't worry, though: will be sure I'm in a less prejudiced state of mind when I settle down to have a listen. 

I remembered reading in John Lucas' biography that Goodall had agreed to cuts (as Stanley mentioned earlier in the thread) - and somebody mentioned on TOP that there were cuts .... 

SK, I know what you mean about bad translations - my Wagner scores mostly contain the old Jamieson translation, which is full of phrases of the "What boots me this rede?" and "Birdling, methinks I am but dull" variety.  On the other hand - prompted partly by this thread - I had Act 3 of Goodall's Valkyrie on the pod on the train this morning, and, with the combination in Andrew Porter's excellent translation, Norman Bailey and Rita Hunter's exemplary diction and the space that Goodall's tempi allow for the text to sound, the drama told in a way that is certainly different from hearing it in German, even though I know the original text well.  Of course, the quality and humanity of the vocal performances help here.

Going slightly off topic here, but isn't it extraordinary how some of the translators of Wagner for the stage have betrayed their origins in their choice of words: dear old Andrew Porter's Ring, with its talk of 'boobies' and 'pernicious nixies', smacked of an English public school education in the inter-war years....while the most recent ENO Parsifal (in which the titual character tells Kundry to 'Clear off, you ****ing bitch!') has more to do with a sink estate in Romford.   

I listened to this recording during my trip to Israel: most enjoyable and the translation didn't hurt too much. Rather more distracting was the sound....as Stanley has said, it's clearly a stereo recording, but seems to have been taped by a member of the audience - the quality is very much 'bootleg'.

....which is what puzzles me.  The quality is considerably below that of a radio broadcast given in, say, the late 40s.  Yet it's in stereo! If it was made by a bootlegger (and the booklet provides no info on this), it must have been a bootlegger with access to (for the time) fairly expensive and sophisticated equipment.

Peter Moores, perhaps?