This concert performance of Meistersinger was important on several counts. The second of Wagner's works to be presented by the Zurich Opera in London, it found the company almost at the peak of its powers, in marked contrast to last year's unsteady Tannhäuser. It also allowed us to hear the great Belgian baritone José van Dam as Hans Sachs, a remarkable performance. Finally, there was an exceptional Beckmesser from German baritone Michael Volle, marking his emergence as a singing actor of considerable subtlety and power.

Both singers offered radical insights into their respective roles. Van Dam has been criticised for a lack of humour in this work, which is missing the point. He presents Sachs as a wise yet world-weary man, no longer young and touchingly aware that he must yield pride of place, both artistically and emotionally, to the next generation. Volle, meanwhile, resists any attempt to turn Beckmesser into a figure of caricature, playing him instead as a tight-lipped, contemptuous bourgeois, trapped in rigid behavioural codes that are not of his own making. He's handsome - which, unusually, makes Beckmesser a sexual threat as well as an artistic one - and his final discomfiture is disquietingly close to tragedy.

Their reflective approach was matched by that of conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who avoided pomposity in favour of clarity and grace, exposing every line of the glorious counterpoint, despite the brass having an off night. The rest of the singing was by and large excellent, with Peter Seiffert an effortless Walther and Matti Salminen an imposing, sonorous Pogner. The only weak link was Petra-Maria Schnitzer's Eva, intensely characterised, though a touch of acid in her voice meant the great lyrical outpourings lacked the requisite beauty and rapture.