The Master Singers of Nuremberg
An opera in three acts
Text by the composer
Komische Oper 'Festival
Saturday, 07.07.2012, 17:00
Tickets 12 - 85 €
5 hours 30 minutes (two intermissions)
Introduction ... 30 minutes before the beginning of the performance, Foyer
Debut performance 1868 - Premiere on 26 September 2010
How seriously they take themselves, these master singers of Nuremberg, who, along with their everyday occupations, also practise the beautiful craft of fashioning verses in the good old way. And they also take extremely seriously the traditional rules which govern their art and which are solemnly recited at all their gatherings. The path of a master singer is hard, long, arduous, and meaningful; one cannot simply turn up and think one can create a song without having first thoroughly learned and memorised the countless notes, melodies, syllables, measures, and intonations. And certainly not if one is that Herr von Stolzinger, who isn't even an honourable middle-class 'Bürger', but rather an impoverished member of the aristocracy. Nothing good can come of this, or indeed of his love for the daughter of the rich goldsmith! – But then he finds his courage, gets up before the audience, and sings his song, a song so filled with the passion of youth and his love for Eva and his art that the masters, who are ultimately artists and not curators, are left ecstatic and disregard the rules in order to cheer on the impassioned young man, who then of course gets to take home his girl.
No other of Richard Wagner's works is so in keeping with our own theatre as his ingenious comical opera. Wagner's fictional version of Nuremberg is a place of art and artists. They are in danger of ossifying in their perpetuation of traditions, but luckily they see their opportunity when innovation knocks at their door. Thus the following applies to the master singers too: their tradition is perpetual renewal.
It sounded so old, and was yet so new, like bird song in sweet May!
Hans Sachs in The master singers of Nuremberg, Act 2