Conductor, Ulf Schirmer. Director, Jossi Wieler; Stage designer. Torsten Köpf; Costume designer, Charlotte Pistorius; Light design, Olaf Freee. Cast – Hans Sachs, Johan Reuter; Veit Pogner, Albert Pesendorfer; Sixtus Beckmesser, Philipp Jekal; Fritz Kothner, Thomas Lehman, Walther von Stolzing, Magnus Vigilius; David, Ya-Chung Huang; Eva, Elena Tsallagova; Magdalena, Annika Schlicht; Nightwatchman, (recorded), Günther Groissböck
How lovely to hear this work again live after more than 6 years. I can’t see it being put on in UK for a while, so one probably has to travel to continental Europe to see it for the forseeable future, unless Glyndebourne revives its show. The last two productions I’ve seen of Meistersinger have been the excellent ENO revival of the WNO Richard Jones production in 2015, with Iain Paterson as Sachs, conducted by Ed Gardner, and the 2017 Kosky Bayreuth production with Michael Volle as Sachs, conducted by Phillipe Jordan. Meistersinger for obvious reasons has some very different resonances in Germany than it has anywhere else. The wonderful ending – the best I have seen of a straightforward production approach – of the Jones production had, as some readers may recall, the chorus gradually holding up pictures of all the great German composers, poets, novelists, thinkers and scientists, to celebrate the creativity and greatness of ‘holy German art’. I suspect you can’t now do that sort of thing in Germany – though Bayreuth did it for many years until the end of the Wolfgang Wagner era . You cannot, I suspect – I’m happy to be proved wrong – produce in Germany now an ending to Meistersinger which does what Wagner wanted it to be – a celebration of the energy and life-enhancing quality of great art (such as his!) . Kosky had a Nuremburg Trials theme in his 2017 production – essentially Wagner is allowed to be a great artist but condemned as a terrible person, and that artistry is allowed to manifest itself only in the music rather than in the operas themselves. As we shall see, there is a similar quirky ending with this production
Pre-reading on the web about this production, I found Deutsche Oper’s synopsis courtesy of the director in 2022, which went “In Dr. Pogner’s Private Conservatory. Pogner, the institute’s founder and director, is planning to transfer it into public ownership. His successor is to be chosen at a public singing exam the next day, Midsummer Day. The last stipulation of the retiring patriarch is that his successor agree to marry his daughter Eva, through whom he hopes to exercise a measure of control over the institute even after his departure. He doesn’t know that Eva is in a secret relationship with a music lecturer and therapist employed there, Hans Sachs”. Oh no, I thought – here we go………
In the event, for me, this was a first rate piece of music theatre. It will definitely be in my top ten for the year. The sets were basically the same in all 3 acts – although the last act added a stage with curtains. In each act there was a central acting area, usually with quite a few chairs, with wooden walls and doors which can represent houses or teachers’ rooms ( the first and third acts are clearly set in a music college, not unreasonably – this is a sing-schule – the apprentices appropriately enough dressed as music students and with scores in their arms.) The church scene at the beginning is interpreted as a group of teachers and music students listening to a performance. Walther and Eva are much less coy with each other than they would be in a conventional production and are passionate with each other right from the beginning of act 1. All are in contemporary dress. The director has fun with the students correlating some of the Meistersingers’ musical formulas with yogic positions. There are some indications of teacher abuse of students – wandering hands and inappropriate treatment. In Act 2, the usual town square scene is quite well represented by the doors and the space. Beckmesser comes on with a full grand piano when serenading Eva/Lena. Apprentices put out chairs and people come to listen to Beckmesser much as they do in Act 3. A wholly contemporary and utterly un-16th century Nuremburg setting raises a whole lot of staging issues – what to do about junkers and burghers? servants and mistresses?; cobblers and pinching shoes? patriarchal attitude to women? – which were on the whole either ignored or dealt with capably. A lot of the action just fell into place naturally and I was happy enough to be relaxed with most of the inconsequentialities. Perhaps the only thing that I find myself getting irritated by, thinking back, was the cobbler issue – the apprentices have to bring our a large bag of soft woolly multi-coloured shoes for Sachs to measure feet for (the same slipper types are used for the measurement of Eva’s feet in Act 3) but of course this allows no room for Sachs’ ‘marking’ – he has to tap on Beckmesser’s piano with a stick. The scene between Eva and Sachs in Act 2 is a lot more sexual in tone and action than normal, and there are hints of aggression from Sachs which we will come back to – there is clearly a MeToo# issue with Sachs and Eva. The action throughout is very carefully observed by the director – for instance, each apprentice has a specific role and personality. Kothner is bustly and pompous, David is a bit spaced out and not quite with it, Pogner is large and amiable. Walther is a good looking 30 plus with a scarf and Eva is small and bewitchingly sexy – both look good together and are lively, passionate characters. Hans Sachs is a cool bearded 50 year old, with his yoga mat under the linden tree, dressed in T shirt and in Act 2, shorts. Beckmesser is studious, thin and nerdy . I thought at first he was being portrayed as having a disability – which would have been problematic – but in fact I think he was just representing by a limp the poor shoes Sachs had given him.
So far so good. What is more controversial is how the second scene of Act 3 develops. In the riot scene at the end of Act 2, we see this kicked off by a group of people coming in from the back of the stage, moving forward with a rolling , jiving motion and gradually entangling with the seated burghers, with a sense of menace. After all the wonderful music and heightened emotions of the first scene of Act 3, played pretty straight, we suddenly see David, in the interval between the two scenes with the trumpets and drums thundering, desperately trying to get out of this large room with many doors – there is something unhealthy, restricting about this whole Nuremburg set-up. The various guild choruses come in as spectral figures writhing on the floor – they disappear when the burghers begin to come in to listen to the song competition. We begin to see a darker side to Sachs – he is seen actually prompting the ‘Wach Auf’ chorus, and revelling in his fame and the adulation of the crowd and the power he has achieved. Critically, when Walther says ‘no’ to becoming a Master, he and Eva begin to edge out of the room by a ramped passageway we suddenly see lit at front stage left – fleeing the restricted space to embrace their own lives as lovers and poets. As Sachs begins his peroration, in a way ‘Wahn’ becomes pervasive – the crowd begins to stir, to roll and jive, to raise hands as in a revivalist meeting (no, I didn’t see any Hitler salutes). Sachs has become a populist leader, the burghers maybe a group of AfD supporters. The remaining Meistersinger stand at the sidelines, not moving and looking concerned at the reaction of the burghers, shaking their heads with dismay.
Does the action in this production’s last scene properly relate to the impact of the music – to which the answer is……no! Is this last scene representing a credible reading of Sachs’ character? – no, it ignores all the humanity that Wagner clearly intended his character to represent; does it ignore Wagner’s stage directions? – yes. However, is it a compelling alternative reading that speaks to contemporary realities? – I believe yes, it is, though it’s sad that the warmth and beauty of the music are led to this conclusion
Musically, this was superb. Ulf Schirmer, who last year I heard conduct Parsifal in his last performance as GMD and Intendant after 11 years at Leipzig, conducted a slowish (4hrs 45 mins) but luminous and beautifully paced reading, The prelude to Act 3 was memorably played with burnished horns and dark cellos. Christopher Maltman in his recent Wagner Society Manchester talk spoke of the bel canto, legato singing of Wagner and what he called the vertically structured way of singing Wagner, giving more focus to text. Johan Reuter definitely came into the latter category – it wasn’t beautifully sung, as Norman Bailey’s account was in the famous 1970’s ENO production, but words were clear and emotion conveyed. Similarly Magnus Vigilius is no Alberto Remedios, but he had a strong and powerful voice that never failed and always thrilled when he opened up. Albert Pesendorfer – who I heard at Bayreuth last year, was a veritable incarnation of Pogner, with towering presence and a warm deep voice. Elena Tsallagova I heard as the Vixen in Munich last year – I thought her voice came across as bigger than I would have thought; again, maybe there was a lack of subtlety, but she led off the Quintet beautifully, and conveyed deep passion at her outburst to Sachs in Act 3. Philipp Jekal as Beckmesser did all that was required of him without ever falling into caricature. The Chorus were on great form, though there were a couple of moments when they were out of synch with each other and with the conductor.
All in all, a thought-provoking, theatrically and musically great evening
Photos courtesy of Deuteche Oper website, copyright: Thomas Aurin
John's musical journey 