Despite his bizarre fears about stage directors (see Gramophone, A/11), Marek Janowski is no slouch when it comes to imparting decisive character and atmosphere to his opera performances. Starting with a barely more than eight-minute overture, this second step in the 72-year-old Polish maestro’s bicentennial Berlin concert cycle of mature Wagner is a swift, light, comic reading of the score, more Lortzing than Tristan. It has much of the narrative thrust of Rudolf Kempe’s old Berlin EMI set and, while we’re handing out similes, it also sounds as if Janowski, like Reginald Goodall, has spent valuable sectional time with his orchestral as well as his vocal soloists. The delicate cello in the introduction to ‘Am stillen Herd’ or the colour and point of the wind-playing in the little Act 3 intermezzo where Beckmesser comes spying in Sachs’s workshop are classy and delightful.

On this particular June evening Albert Dohmen sounded at home across the whole spectrum of Sachs’s poetry, wistfulness and wit. He and Janowski avoid making too much black-dog mood in the ‘Wahn’ scene or excessive anger and self-pity over Eva’s attraction to Walther. Meanwhile, Dietrich Henschel essays a Beckmesser who can be all of pompous, weird, a credible vocalist in both serenade and prize song to Eva – and funny. (His attempt on the prize song has a crazy credibility not a million miles away from Bayreuth’s recent take on the number as anarchic performance art.) Sonn is imaginative in David’s tricky cataloguing of all the tones, Zeppenfeld a Pogner of real passion and concern. Magdalene, the other masters and the chorus – challenged by (but more than coping with) Janowski’s pace and bounce on the Festwiese – are strong contributors.

So far, so fine. It must be said, however, that the lovers were not quite so exciting at the single evening’s performance on which this set is based. Robert Dean Smith, Bayreuth’s successful current Tristan, doesn’t essay a wide enough range of colour in the comparatively higher reaches of Walther’s mood-swings – although he and Janowski manage a nice private rehearsal feeling for the dictation of the dream prize song to Sachs. Edith Haller, an ideal Eva on paper, comes across as shy and innig, a cosy father’s daughter but insufficiently heroic in the ‘O Sachs! Mein Freund!’ outburst.

Janowski’s achievement is to have recreated a genuine comic feel for the piece. Bayreuth’s old, almost complete Furtwängler or more recent Barenboim are darker, more Tristan-like; Kempe, Cluytens, the Dresden Karajan and (slow speeds and English language notwithstanding) Goodall lighter and more comic. Toscanini in 1937 offers the most heaven of all but even the most recent transfer has not yet made this Selenophone original a hi-fi experience.