Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Despite the Welsh National Opera lacking éclat of late, this is a peerless take on Wagner's great comedy. Rating: * * * * *

I realise that I have awarded five stars three times in recent weeks, and here is another performance that indisputably merits the same rating.

Whatever else is broken about Britain, it’s not opera: penny for penny, I guess we do it better than anyone in the world.

Welsh National Opera has lacked éclat of late, but this superlative production of Wagner’s great comedy puts it firmly back on top. It is as strong musically as it is theatrically, but one’s attention is immediately claimed by Richard Jones’s questingly intelligent staging.

Rightly, I think, Jones doesn’t treat the opera as a political statement or a nationalistic tub-thump igniting a long fuse to Nazism. The drop curtain displays a collage of faces of German culture, from Bach to Bausch, and Bismarck and Hitler are not among them: the focus here is art, its value to a community and the necessary relation between tradition and innovation.

Paul Steinberg and Buki Shiff’s stylised designs also suggest that the opera is as much about Wagner’s own time as it is about an imagined 16th century. Hans Sachs is the embodiment of modern liberal scepticism, caught between Walther, the impulsive self-absorbed Bohemian, and Beckmesser, the frock-coated bureaucrat, while the Nurembergers are nostalgic Victorians who love dressing up in olde-worlde doublet and hose for their local pageant.

But Jones doesn’t push the concept too hard, and there’s nothing glibly schematic about this interpretation. What makes the performance so moving is its warm humanity and sensitivity to human foible: the angelic Eva is also a spoilt, petulant brat, while Beckmesser is more pathetic than pompous. The comedy grows out of such characterisation, but there are some delicious jokes too (as well as a wonderfully spooky Nightwatchman).

The lightness of touch on stage is complemented in the pit by Lothar Koenigs’s nimble and graceful conducting. Attentive to the dance of the counterpoint and the score’s sheer merriness, it is also gently considerate of the singers. The orchestra played magnificently for him.

Bryn Terfel sang his first Sachs. It was no disappointment: the central monologues were superbly declaimed, and the man’s suppressed anger at the stupidity surrounding him was as powerfully drawn as his rueful wisdom.

Christopher Purves’s Beckmesser was every bit his match: a poor misguided fool but also a survivor, who will no doubt recover his dignity and become mayor.

Amanda Roocroft developed a nasty vibrato under pressure and her German is mush, but she nevertheless made a seductively lovely Eva. The American tenor Raymond Very had tired vocally by the third act, but his Walther was thoughtfully played and decently sung. Andrew Tortise was a complete delight as David, and the masters and apprentices were cast from strength.

A final word of praise for WNO’s peerless chorus, which brought tears to my eyes in Wach auf. Yes, it was Hitler’s favourite too, but as this glorious production reminds us, that doesn’t mean it’s not great music.