Spend six hours (almost all wearing a mask) listening to The Meistersingers of Nuremberg? Few dared to do this: the hall in the Met was about half empty. I was among those who made up their minds.
I had my reasons: Antonio Pappano, chief conductor of Covent Garden, whom I discovered back in 1997, when a young and little-known native of Connecticut made his Met debut, presenting an unforgettable interpretation of Eugene Onegin in terms of depth and subtlety of reading (alas , his current return had to wait almost a quarter of a century!), and in addition, Liz Davidzen, a young Swedish singer with a unique voice in the role of Eve and a strong, long-time “sucked” into complex Wagnerian parts of the rest of the composition, led by Michael Wolle, who made Hans Sachs one of the main characters of their large repertoire.
It turned out to be one of the most exciting evenings I have ever had at the Met. Pappano really knows opera and knows how to “tell” her drama, lead the characters, draw the trajectories of their characters with tempo, dynamics, orchestral paint and dozens of small and seemingly imperceptible details, creating an ideal symbiosis of the orchestra and the singers he loves, with whom he breathes …
The singers reciprocate him and give out the maximum that they are capable of both vocally and scenic. Liz Davidzen’s voice, grandiose in power and beauty, will also bring pleasure in scale. But how could one not regret that Wagner did not write more music for her heroine? However, Davidzen sang the part of the jeweler Pogner’s daughter, whom her father promises as a prize to the wife of the winner of the song contest, without a single miss, with rare naturalness and subtlety in everything, from sweet coquetry with Walter in a scene in a church to scenes with Sachs, an elderly neighbor. a widower, a poet and a shoemaker, whom she is even ready to marry, especially since the results of the competition are unpredictable, and the quintet shining with joy in the third act, when she blesses the song created by Walter for the competition, believing in a happy outcome.
Let me remind you: the knight Walter von Stolzing is in love with Eve, and since her hand is a prize in the competition, he is ready to participate. But he does not know the rules, and he does not believe in them, but in the power of inspiration. And when trying to get the title of “master”, which allows you to participate in the competition, it fails, especially since the clerk Beckmesser, himself dreaming of Eve, scrupulously notes all his mistakes. Only one of the judges, Sachs (a real poet of the 16th century), feels that in Walter not only talent, but also the future, and after difficult reflections, despite his own love for Eve, decides to help him master the rules and create a song where the traditions of the past are united with the beauty and passion of youth. This song is one of Wagner’s finest (and vocally most difficult) creations. He meticulously shows the process of her birth, and in the finale gives her in full, and tenor in the role of Walter is not easy to save strength for this stellar climax. Klaus Florian Vogt possesses both skill and understanding of style and a beautiful timbre, although – and this was especially noticeable next to Davidzen – his singing did not always have enough evenness and power.
But Volle was magnificent, and his Sachs became a real hero of the play, as, incidentally, Wagner intended.
Here is the problem. Wagner called “Meistersingers” a comedy, but it contains a lot of philosophizing, which makes it heavier, on topics that haunted the author, namely: innovation, traditions and … “the national question.” Resentment for early failures (in particular, the failure of “Tannhäuser” in Paris) and envy of the pan-European glory of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn here mixed with anti-Semitism brought up by centuries of German history, with a sincere and quite typical for that time desire to identify a national musical style and polemical the fuse of a former revolutionary. Let us remember: Wagner’s main anti-Semitic pamphlet “Jewry in Music”, published under a pseudonym in 1850, was expanded, supplemented and printed under Wagner’s own name 19 years later, immediately after the Meistersingers.
The Meistersingers are largely his illustration: the clerk Beckmesser (like other villains in Wagner’s operas – Klingsor, Mime, Alberich), his speech, his musical intonations are the embodiment of the qualities that Wagner, hating, endowed the Jews with. When the clerk at the competition turns into complete nonsense phrases from Walter’s song he had stolen, this is absurd to the point of improbability, but for Wagner’s German contemporaries who greeted the opera with a bang, this is a real sign of a “foreigner”. How, after that, can one hear Sachs’ final monologue about the need to preserve and protect great German art from “strangers” who are ready to cripple it and not think about the Nazis, old and new?
There are no direct references to the “Jewish” question in the opera. Today’s viewer will not always understand the author’s hints. The directors are also trying to smooth out the corners. In the current production, special praise is given to tenor Johannes Martin Kranzl with his truly outstanding interpretation of the role of Beckmesser: this is not a caricature, but a man lost in the past, going to deception in the name of love and status and having paid dearly for it.
On Sunday, November 14th, the Met gives the Meistersingers for the last time. The production of Otto Schenk, in the super-realistic scenery of Gunther Schneider-Simsen, which the audience invariably applauds, is familiar to audiophiles from the revivals of yesteryear and from the 2001 TV broadcasts. She hasn’t been to the Met since 2014 and is unlikely to return soon, especially with equally strong performers. The opera is full of unforgettable music. But if the author’s ideas annoy you, listen to Tristan and Isolde. It’s only about love.
Newspaper headline:
What to do with the Meistersingers?
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