I wonder if the time will ever come when we shall have a complete and integral recorded performance of this wonderful Meistersinger score? If such a thing does come to pass, I hope the results will be comparable, in terms of production, ensemble work and recording at least, with the complete Act Three performed by the Dresden State Opera... The second volume of this recording, comprising the final scene is, in our opinion, an absolute "must" for any library of recorded opera.

In the third act Melchior adds an accomplishment of another sort: the complete realization of a character's emotional and physical condition through the mental and musical text. Here his work may be compared with that of a Chaliapin or a Muzio, except that Melchior's is achieved in a context infinitely more demanding. The opening pages of the delirium scene he renders in a dull, utterly exhausted tone that, for once, we recognize as the artist's choice rather than that of the tenor's vocal condition. He sinks back into this in subsequent moments of Tristan's weakness, sometimes letting the vibrato and resonance turn dead in a fashion that would alarm us in any other singer. But at each of Tristan's fevered rebounds, he is back with his most ringing, passionate full voice, reaching joyous climaxes at such points as "Isolde kommt, Isolde naht!" Quite terrible ones in places like "Verflucht sei dieser Trank" and still able to begin the final challenge "O diese Sonne" with fresh spinning tone and cap it with brilliant A-natural "Zu ihr! Zu ihr!"