The Masters Singers of Nuremberg

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , in French the Masters Singers of Nuremberg , WWV 96, is an opera of Richard Wagner created in 1868.

Seventh of the ten operas of maturity of Wagner in the order of completion, it is the only one with being a Comédie. It is also the only one to fall under a historical and geographical context precisely rather located than within a mythical or legendary framework. During nearly five hours and half with the Interval S, it is one of longest operas the among those regularly played today.

Data sheet

Characters

  • Hans Sachs , Shoe-maker (Baritone-low)
  • Veit Pogner , goldsmith (low)
  • Kunz Vogelgesang , furrier (Tenor)
  • Konrad Nachtigall , Tinman (low)
  • Sixtus Beckmesser , municipal Clerk (baritone)
  • Friz Kothner , Baker (baritone)
  • Balthasar Zorn , tinner (tenor)
  • Ulrich Eisslinger , grocer (tenor)
  • Augustin Moser , tailor (tenor)
  • Hermann Ortel , Soap to deny (low)
  • Hans Schwarz , hosier (low)
  • Hans Folz , ironmonger (low)
  • Walther von Stolzing , young knight of Franconie (tenor)
  • David , apprentice of Hans Sachs (tenor)
  • Eva , girl of Pogner (Soprano)
  • Magdalene , nurse of Eva (Contralto)
  • a night watchman (low)
    • Middle-class
  • and women of all the corporations, companions, apprentices, young girls, people of Nuremberg

Argument

The action proceeds with Nuremberg at the 16th century.

Act I

Inside the church Holy-Catherine.

Scene 1. Eva, girl of the middle-class rich person Veit Pogner, and Magdalene, its nurse, attend the mass. Walther von Stolzing, young knight, launches impetuous glances in the direction of Eva, which it met the day before in the house of his father. They fell éperduement in love one with the other. Walther learns that she is promised with gaining contest of song which will be held the following day. Unfortunately, Walther is unaware of this Article very.

Scene 2. David, young apprentice at the poet and shoe-maker Hans Sachs, prepares the church for the next meeting of the Masters Singers. Magdalene, with which David is in love, promises mounts and wonders to him if he learns in Walther the rules Masters. David, after an ode with the Masters, launches out in an enumeration of the styles and kinds recognized by the Guild of the singers. David learns in Walther that a Master must starting from these modes compose a new melody and worms. Each error with respect to these modes is sanctioned by the marker. A candidate can make only seven faults.

Scene 3. the assembly prepares, Beckmesser, clerk of the city, presses Pogner to help it to obtain the hand of his/her daughter. Walther, as for him, made share with the father of Eva of his will to take part in the contest. From the Beckmesser start is wary about it.

Walther must sing before the assembly which will or not authorize it to take part in the contest of the following day. Beckmesser is indicated marker, and humiliates Walther by stopping it with the right in the middle of its song: it does not have any more the place on its slate to note the errors of the young knight.

Hans Sachs enjoint her fellow-members not to reject the song under pretext which it is not familiar, and encourages Walther to continue her ode. But the tumult grows, the song is refused because “without grace”.

Act II

a narrow street, two houses on the scene, that of Pogner, the other of Sachs in front of which is planted a large lime. Serene night of summer, the night fall gradually.

Scene 1. the apprentices celebrate the night of Midsummer's Day and scoff the application at David. This one learns the failure from Walter to the contest with Magdalene, which makes him the reproach of it. It is then called by Sachs.

Scene 2. Between Eva with his/her father; she asks to him whether she will be obliged to marry with gaining. Pogner recalls him that she will marry “the Master of her choice”. Magdalene enters and learns the failure from Walther with Eva, which decides to go to seek council at Sachs.

Scene 3. Hans Sachs, dreaming with the strange seduction of the song of Walther, regrets the attitude of the Masters.

Scene 4. Eva appears, calls upon the long friendship which binds them, and Hans confirms that the young knight is not likely any to gain. Magdalene requires of Eva to return and understands with its mood that it is in love. A stratagem thus should be found. Knowing that Bekmesser decided to even sing to him its serenade this evening, Eva convinces Magdalene to take its place on the balcony.

Scene 5. Walther appears with the foot of the house, Eva goes down, and hidden in the lime, she explains her plan to flee. Sachs hears the conversation, it leaves and lights the two lovers. They can only think of its attitude.

Scene 6. Beckmesser appears in the lane. At once that it starts to sing its serenade, Sachs entonne with conceal-head an ode with Eve expelled of the paradise, while being accompanied by its hammer. Magdalene, in the clothes of Eva, appears on the balcony while Beckmesser despairs to be able to sing, and requires of Sachs to stop working. This one proposes a market to him, Sachs will play the part of the marker using the hammer, thus souliagnant the faults of Beckmesser. Beckmesser does as well faults as Sachs finished a pair of shoe during the song.

The noise woke up all the vicinity. David, seizing a bludgeon, ten is caught violently with the lute of Beckmesser, thus déclanchant a small riot in all the district. During the tumult, Sachs keeps an eye on the two lovers. When those want to flee, it pushes Eva in the arms of his father, and accommodates Walther in its graver.

Act III

In the graver of Sachs.

Scene 1. David between while Sachs is damaged in the reading of a large book. He asks for forgiveness to him of have taken share with the riots of the day before, but Sachs seems to be unaware of it. The young apprentice remembers that it is Midsummer's Day today, it thus sings his own song. Then worried by its hopes of marriage with Magdalene, it comes from there to wonder whether its Master would not think of marrying Eva. Sachs sends it to prepare for the contest, and decides to help Walther.

Scene 2. Walther appears in the graver, and known as in Sachs which it made a marvellous dream. This fills with enthusiasm Sachs, which declares to him that art nourished dreams, and the enjoint to compose its song starting from this dream to him, itself writing the worms and correcting the faults. Walther, guided by Sachs, sings two verses while Sachs underlines their compliance with the rules of the Masters.

They leave to prepare for the contest.

Scene 3. Beckmesser, seeing the empty store, goes so far as to enter. He notices the song left on the table. He thinks immediately that these worms are the declaration of love of Sachs with Eva, and puts the song in its pocket. Sachs returning in its graver, realizes of the disappearance of the song. Beckmesser holds up it all while showing it to want to allure Eva. But Sachs, without to deny that it be with its hand - since it wrote under the dictation of Walther -, says to him that it can keep it, and even to sing it if it wishes it, provided that it finds the tone right.

Scene 4. Eva appears pretexting a pair of painful shoes. Walther enters in its turn. The two lovers have eyes only one for the other, and Walther improvises the third verse of its song. In front of the embarrassment of Eva towards him, Sachs affirms that it forever intend to play kings Marke with respect to Isolde d' Eva and of Tristan de Walther; Wagner includes in this passage of many leitmotive resulting from Tristan and Isolde .

David and Magdalene appear. Sachs make David companion shoe-maker, and baptizes the song of Walther Die selige Morgentraumdeut-Weise ( radiant Song of the morning dream ). They go on the place of the contest.

a large meadow. The citizens are in festival. Platforms and estrades joyeusement are joyeusement decorated.

Scene 5. a great procession of the guilds takes place before the contest does not start. Sachs, acclaimed by the people, sings an anthem, for which Wagner repend of the worms of the historical Hans Sachs.

Beckmesser has to sing. It did not find the tone right, deforms the words and is ridiculed before the assembly. Furious, it is caught some in Sachs, to which it allots the song. But Sachs protests and recognizes that he would like to be the author of this splendid song. He announces that the author of song will make known himself; Walther approaches then and entonne its song. He is proclaimed victorious and thus gains the hand of Eva.

The assembly acclaims it; Pogner blesses the young couple, and decides to confer on Walther the title of Master. But the young knight refuses. Sachs, stopping it, exposes the real function of the Masters, the safeguard of art noble and German song. Walther accepts finally the honor. General joy.

Curtain.

Topics

  • safeguard of art by the conciliation of the tradition and the innovation. All the opera carries out towards the composition and the creation of the Song of the contest to act III, and Wagner is presented as much in youth, the spontaneous talent and the enthusiasm of Walther, of which it shows inexperience however, that in the wisdom and the formal control of Sachs, which moderates its heats and reveals to him the significance and the logic of the guns of the Fingering chart.
  • mediocrity and the grotesque one of criticisms in their attachment limited to the tradition and their incapacity to create, which symbolize the character of Beckmesser - whose name since became an insult or a joke with regard to the musical Critique.
  • devotion to the art, which pushes Pogner to hold the hand of his/her daughter to a Master Singer.
  • the humility of the artist vis-a-vis his Article One can wonder besides whether Wagner, of proud nature, were recognized more in Sachs which willingly proclaims the perfection of the Song of the contest or in Walther von Stolzing whose name evokes the sure character of him ( stolz means “to trust” in German).
  • renouncement, illustrated by the attitude of Sachs with respect to Eva, and besides expressed more clearly by the music (prelude of act III) that by the booklet; its character even watch depth of the influence of Schopenhauer on Wagner, which one generally associates with Tristan and Isolde .
  • the opposition enters the middle-class, anxious to leave their condition of tradesmen and to rise thanks to art (a reference to the Juif S of Germany?), and the artistocrat seeking to be combined with this rising class but restive to subject itself to the rules of the contest.
  • the glory of art German, sensitive in the admonition of Sachs to Walther after the Song of the contest, which appears today shocking ( If the people and the German empire fell/Into a false majesty welche/Bientôt no prince any more its people would not include/understand ). Hoffmannstahl will replace this emphase in the context of the Années 1860: The nationalist emphase is the one extreme time old reflection of patriotic fever (that where one feels the German unit being carried out).

Remarks

  • Beckmesser, the fastidious Master on the formal rules, defender limited of the tradition, pedant, proud and besides bad singer, is often seen as a caricature of the critic of the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna Eduard Hanslick, defender of the brahmsiens and keen detractor of Wagner and its partisans. However the first drafts go back to 1845, before Hanslick writes in 1846 its first article on Wagner - on a rather positive tone besides -, and the character constitutes rather a satire of the musical Critique in general. However the major divergences and the animosity which developed between brahmsiens and Wagnerian carried out Wagner to give to the marker the name of Veit Hanslich or Hans Lick in her second draft in prose in October 1861. Wagner pays in its Autobiographie Mein Leben , a work prone to guarantee and nonfree from rebuildings, that the reaction of Hanslick was bad during a private reading of the booklet of the Maîtres Singers , which the critic does not mention in its own memories, in which it rents even the quality of the booklet.
  • If one reads the work on an autobiographical mode, one can also see Pogner and Eva like a representation of Liszt and Cosima, Wagner being expressed alternatively by Walther and Sachs.
  • the Masters used by Wagner bear the names of truths Maîtres Singers, to start with Hans Sachs, one of the most famous Masters of the history of the German song; Wagner is even arranged to make quote the name of the twelfth Maître, Nikolaus Vogel, whose absence is explained by a disease. These characters do not constitute however a historical reconstitution, and very little information reached us besides, except with regard to Hans Sachs.
  • They is only operas of maturity of Wagner which finishes “well” - or in any case in the joy, according to the way in which one considers the Rédemption of the Dutchman and Senta in the Ghost ship and that of Amfortas in Parsifal . One can qualify it “comedy” with the direction where the Knight with the pink of Strauss and Hofmannsthal is one comedy for the music .
  • the particular place of the Maîtres Singers in the work of Wagner does not prevent similarities with other operas:
    • a contest of song is also in the center of the action of Tannhäuser , composed at the same time as the first drafts of the booklet of the Maîtres Singers .
    • It parallel between the awakening of spring and the awakening of the love, from which Walther composes its song, will be thorough front still by Wagner with the Song of the spring of the Valkyrie .
    • Just like the Dutchman, Lohengrin, Tristan, Siegmund and Parsifal, Walther is in the beginning an external character , arriving in a community whose rules or principles are not them his.
  • the end of act II was inspired in Wagner by a battle to which it assisted in the streets of Nuremberg in 1835.

References and sources

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