Last week at a press conference announcing the Metropolitan Opera’s 2007–08 season, James Levine took pains to counterbalance the buzz about the new looks of productions in the Peter Gelb regime by stressing that the new general manager is equally devoted to musical values. The return last Thursday of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” after an absence of three seasons suggests Mr. Levine knows whereof he speaks.

Otto Schenk’s 1993 production is not without points in its favor, but glorious singing and superb playing from Mr. Levine’s orchestra were at the heart of the evening’s success.

Those present at the production’s last outing were on notice of several excellent individual portrayals carried over, including that of James Morris as the philosophershoemaker Hans Sachs.

Here is a role that requires above all depth of expression, making it a favorite of aging bass-baritones with powerful personalities and fading voices. Mr. Morris turned 60 earlier this year; if 60 is indeed the new 50, he might be cited as living proof. His voice, though never known for its plushness, remains steady, resonant, and true. The great monologues of Acts II and III were credibly seasoned by the experience of life, yet Mr. Morris never sounded vocally worn or tired. And his fine vocal health was matched by a trim physique that made young Eva’s hints of a pairing between her and Sachs entirely plausible.

But her true love is the knight Walther von Stolzing, sung by Johan Botha, whose tenor is surely the most gorgeous to be heard in the lyrical Wagner roles in years. The way Mr. Botha’s Walther grew in confidence during the course of singing the Prize Song to the assembled Nurembergers was an especially nice touch. Matthew Polenzani similarly thrived in the secondary but nonetheless demanding tenor role of Sachs’s apprentice, David. Another familiar portrayal came from Hans-Joachim Ketelsen, as Beckmesser, the town clerk whose humiliating, even sadistic treatment detracts from the warm glow of the opera overall. Endowed with an imposing voice, Mr. Ketelsen sang rather than barked the part and proved an alert actor. John Del Carlo’s strongly voiced Kothner aptly conveyed the mastersingers’ collective sense of self-importance, and John Relyea was a formidable Night Watchman.

Among the newcomers to the production is the excellent lyric soprano Hei-Kyung Hong as Eva. When the production was first mounted, Karita Mattila attracted attention with an Eva feistier than the norm. Ms. Hong, however, is not quite feisty enough. She fell short in such impulsive outbursts as “Euch, oder Keinen!,” when Eva tells Walther she will marry him or no one, and “O Sachs! mein Freund!,” a disarming emotional embrace of the shoemaker. If Eva was a bit of a stretch for Ms. Hong, there were lovely moments, including the pure, well sculpted phrases with which she led off the great Quintet. And the able young Russian Evgeny Nikitin as Pogner displayed his attractive, flexible bass with sufficient gravitas to make for a fine portrayal of Eva’s father. Maria Zifchak brings a strikingly attractive, young sounding mezzo to David’s beloved Magdalene, a role often cast by one who sounds old enough to be the apprentice’s mother.

With Mr. Levine in the pit, the performance moved surely and eloquently along its six-hour trajectory. Mr. Levine’s Wagner can sometimes be a little stodgy, but it is difficult to fault his broad pacing of the Act III prelude, given the character and refinement of the silken violin sequencing, for instance, or the articulate, perfectly balanced brass of the “Wacht auf.” When the latter finally rolled along, the Met’s chorus sang it thrillingly.

Finally, a word about Mr. Schenk’s ultratraditional Wagner productions. Of Wagner’s 10 principal operas, seven, including the four “Ring” operas, currently exist at the Met in productions by Mr. Schenk, a situation that at best is lopsided and at worst borders on the absurd.

The Met has announced that it will begin assembling a new “Ring” production by Robert Lepage in 2010–11, and Mr. Schenk’s other productions will also be replaced someday, as all productions eventually are. Perhaps if one of them is to be kept around for old times’ sake, “Meistersinger” is a good candidate. The storybook sets by Günther Schneider-Siemssen comport with the opera’s sunny, Cmajor ambiance, and Mr. Schenk is too canny a director to allow the opera’s dramatic high points to fizzle. (Peter McClintock oversees the current revival.)

But, artistically speaking, his production is more in tune with the well-meaning but narrow-minded mastersingers — guardians of tradition — than with the innovations of the young Walther, which, in the opera, carry the day.

Until March 13 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).