OPERA REVIEW : Met Offers a New, Old-Fashioned ‘Meistersinger’ : The Met mounts a picture-postcard version of the Wagner warhorse that looks a lot like one staged 30 years ago.

The Metropolitan Opera stands alone when it comes to the grandiose challenges of Richard Wagner.

Other important companies around the world, from Bayreuth to Seattle, regard these Germanic monuments as opportunities to expand and explore the possibilities of modern stagecraft. Other companies search--sometimes with enlightened success and sometimes with dismal failure--for psychological credibility, for undertones of sociological and even political meaning.

Modern Wagner productions elsewhere deal in symbols, in abstractions and stylizations. They try to focus more on poetry than on prose, to rely more on vague lights than on literal props.

The mighty, stodgy Met turns its back on a century of theatrical progress and concentrates on quaint, naive, lavish, let’s-pretend realism. The local guardians of the reactionary treasure--if it can be called that--are James Levine, the maestro in excelsis, Otto Schenk, his picturesque-traffic cop accomplice, Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, the storybook-set designer in residence, and Rolf Langenfass, the compliant creator of pretty-pretty costumes.

This team has already given appreciative New Yorkers a fairy-tale “Ring” and a kitsch-paradise “Parsifal.” And now, folks, a picture-postcard version of “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg” . . . .

Thirty years ago, during another cautious Met regime, Nathaniel Merrill and Robert O’Hearn collaborated on a lovely, essentially conservative “Meistersinger” that, apart from a sketchy final scene, looked as if it had been plucked from the pages of an early edition of “The Victor Book of the Opera.” The new version, which was given its first, rapturously received performance Thursday night, looks very much like the old one.

At least it looks like the old one for 2 1/2 acts. Then, for the climactic confrontations on the so-called festival meadow, it confuses the verdant banks of the Pegnitz with the grubby expanses of Central Park, even incorporating an oddly familiar phony-fortress arch in the background.

At the Met, a church always resembles a church, an alley resembles an alley and a tree resembles a tree. (A leaf of grass still cannot resemble a leaf of grass, but not for want of trying.) The decors are decorated in loving detail, down to authentic shoe buckles, ornate nameplates on all the masters’ desks, and a small Durer woodcut adorning the wall of Hans Sachs’ study.

To some, the uninspired verisimilitude no doubt inspires wonder and comfort. To others--this other, for instance--it just looks lazy and fussy. No one can complain, however, that this new old-fashioned “Meistersinger” impedes or distorts Wagner’s intended message. Until pompous ugliness sets in with the finale, the Met provides stagy pictorialism at its unabashedly regressive best.

Schenk may not have any compelling thoughts on the meaning of “Die Meistersinger,” but he does direct his singing-actors--an uncommonly sensitive, uncommonly attractive, reasonably well-matched ensemble--with serious concern for character development.

Stereotyping is avoided wherever possible. One must be grateful.

The pivotal character is, of course, Hans Sachs--cobbler by profession, philosopher by inclination. Old enough to be wise yet young enough to be passionate, he must dominate the stage for nearly six hours as the moral magnet in the action.

The role was originally entrusted here to Bernd Weikl, but the German baritone reportedly had to withdraw while recovering from back surgery. To replace him, Levine & Co. turned to Donald McIntyre, a celebrated Bayreuth baritone from New Zealand whose name does not even appear on the current roster. It turned out to be a fortunate move.

McIntyre never was the world’s loudest or most plangent Wagnerian, and, at 58, his voice shows some honorable signs of wear. He uses it, however, with extraordinary finesse over the very long haul, mustering incisive power for the aggressive outbursts and a fine-edged pianissimo, bordering on parlando, for the introspective passages. Unlike some illustrious, more restrained predecessors, his Sachs vacillates with startling speed between depression and elation, but the emotional extremes are poignantly motivated.

Theoretically, the stentorian flourishes of Walther von Stolzing require a junior Heldentenor--which happens to be an exceedingly rare breed. The Met drafted Francisco Araiza, a fragile lyric tenor best known for his elegant Mozart and Rossini. The seemingly foolhardy casting experiment ended in triumph.

Araiza is no Mexican Melchior, and he could not ring any rafters in the great climaxes. It hardly mattered. He focused the sturdy if slender tone at his command perfectly (well, nearly perfectly), resisted the temptation to force and paced himself cannily. He brought dreamy pathos to the amorous musings, and uncommon urgency to the impetuous climaxes. Although less than heroic in stature, he cut a convincingly youthful figure and moved with persuasive ardor.

Karita Mattila, the exquisite Finnish soprano, introduced a tomboyish, earthy, hyperactive Eva--no blonde-virgin cliches for her. She sang beautifully but might have benefited from a Valium or two.

Hermann Prey avoided all traces of caricature, thank goodness, as a pensive, cranky, patently misunderstood Beckmesser who came amazingly close to bel-canto in his Prize Song and tellingly close to tragedy in his discredited--not disgraced--exit. The assignment, originally intended for Hakan Hagegard, serves as a memorable climax for Prey’s long and distinguished career.

Lars Magnusson played a pleasantly perky David to the youthfully compelling Lene of Wendy White (who replaced the indisposed Birgitta Svenden). Jan-Hendrik Rootering blustered darkly as Pogner, and John Del Carlo bumbled authoritatively as Kothner, in his Met debut. Julien Robbins made a haunting cameo of the befuddled Nightwatchman.

The huge, well-differentiated supporting cast was uniformly strong. The expanded chorus, trained by Raymond Hughes, rose splendidly to its weighty, sometimes convoluted challenges.

Levine conducted--slowly, for the most part--with magnificent breadth for the grand line and telling sensitivity for the intimate impulse. The Met orchestra played for its boss with tireless brilliance and mellow sonority.

This “Meistersinger” was hardly innovative in terms of drama. Musically, however, it reinforced a noble, precarious tradition.