# Meistersinger: Wagner's Most Perfect Opera?



## Guest (Dec 24, 2015)

So I finally listened to my Kubelik version of Meistersinger last night. Kept me busy from 6 p.m. until midnight! 

I can't help but thinking that this is Wagner's most perfect opera. The opera is LONG but doesn't seem as long as it is because it's perfectly proportioned. All the themes are perfectly integrated.

The Ring is quite an accomplishment but there are a few low points. The leitmotivs are used in a very obvious way and ad nauseam. Wagner definitely perfected his craft in Parsifal.

So I would say that the three greatest Wagner operas are Parsifal, Tristan and Meistersinger.

But the libretto of Parsifal kind of disqualifies it as a "Perfect" opera. 

So my vote for Meistersinger and Tristan as Wagner's most perfect works. But I think Meistersinger gets the edge for the libretto and the universality of the themes. 

My 2 cents...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Hard to say which is the most perfect and I can't comment on it because I have not seen/heard all of Wagner's operas (only Meistersinger and the Hollander), both of which are excellent operas.


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## Nevilevelis (Dec 23, 2015)

DoReFaMi said:


> So I finally listened to my Kubelik version of Meistersinger last night. Kept me busy from 6 p.m. until midnight!
> 
> I can't help but thinking that this is Wagner's most perfect opera. The opera is LONG but doesn't seem as long as it is because it's perfectly proportioned. All the themes are perfectly integrated.
> 
> ...


Yes, it's certainly my favourite Wagner opera. I have done it twice as one of the Lehrbuben. My estimation of his genius shot up when I discovered that he wrote the overture FIRST! It's hard to believe! Not even Mozart did that!

I saw the recent production at ENO and was utterly blown away by the work and the production.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It certainly contains some grwat music but it is far too long winded in telling not much. Wagner should have got a decent librettist to either wrote or edit his libretto.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Tristan und Isolde stands head and shoulders above Meistersinger (and Wagner's other operas).


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Der Ring, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger - they are all perfect!


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

I have struggled with Meistersinger far more that any other Wagner opera. To me it is just too long, slow and dull. Hopefully, someday I will come to appreciate it, but The Ring to me is his best work, followed by Parsifal and Tristan.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I agree that the three most perfect works are Tristan, Parsifal and Meistersinger. With Parsifal standing a little above the other two and that includes its libretto.

The Ring isn't perfect, but then neither is life. It's his supreme masterwork, in my opinion.

N.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wagner is one of those artists, like Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Melville, and, closer to home, Beethoven, who tried to do things so extraordinary that perfection is almost an irrelevant concept to apply to their work. When you try to express the inexpressible you are bound to come up short somewhere; somewhere there will be a lapse in inspiration, a faulty judgment, a bit of unevenness, or a promise unfulfilled. In giving us domestic comedies about philandering counts and perky housemaids, or melodramas about jealous divas and lascivious police chiefs, a fine librettist and a great composer might well produce something precisely judged and faultless. That's one kind of excellence, a kind in which perfection seems feasible. But to take us to the uttermost extreme of passion, through the impossible quest by man and woman for a transcendent union beyond the tragedy of life, to make us experience to exhaustion the ecstasy and the pain of it, and to conceive for this inconceivable project a new kind of drama and a new kind of music, and still to come as near to aesthetic perfection as Wagner did - that is something more than excellence, and something that makes perfection almost an incidental pleasure, an afterthought to be considered long after the harrowing experience of the thing has dissipated.

Philosophers such as Burke and Kant had considered the nature of beauty, and had arrived at a distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. Perfection, I think, pertains to the beautiful. Perhaps the nearest parallel pertaining to the sublime would be the transcendental, which, like perfection, takes us to an all-sufficient reality beyond which our imaginations cannot go.

Because _Die Meistersinger_ is an outlier among Wagner's operas - because it's a comedy, a genre which can only rarely (as in Shakespeare's _Tempest_) touch the sublime - I have no quarrel with the suggestion that it's his most perfect work. However, I don't think that that need imply that it's his greatest. We can debate that question. For me, all things considered - including its libretto - the work in which the beautiful and the sublime together reach their most perfect and transcendent amalgamation is his last opera, _Parsifal_.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

All of this is so subjective that it really doesn't mean very much but I will throw my choice in the "ring" and pick a non-ringer, _Parsifal_. No more beautiful music has ever been written by the master.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

I don't think the _Ring_ is perfect, but I do think it is the single most magnificant work in all of opera. The best operas ever written - easy peasy no contest - _Le nozze di Figaro_ and _Don Giovanni_.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

gellio said:


> I don't think the _Ring_ is perfect, but I do think it is the single most magnificant work in all of opera. The best operas ever written - easy peasy no contest - _Le nozze di Figaro_ and _Don Giovanni_.


Add Cosi fan Tutte and Falstaff to that.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Add Cosi fan Tutte and Falstaff to that.


I could add Cosi and Zauberflote to that, but not Falstaff, LOL. Verdi is not my cup of tea


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2015)

I got to listen to Parsifal again! Only gave it one full complete listening but agreed it's his most perfect music.


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2015)

Hard to choose between Le Nozze, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte, but for some reason I prefer Cosi Fan Tutte even though the story... 

My vote for Verdi "La Traviata" I'll go with the most popular opera of all time.


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## anmhe (Feb 10, 2015)

It really is a matter of taste. It's definitely not my favorite, but I have grown to love it over the years. It took a lot of effort (I had to go through eight different recordings to find one that clicked with me), but there's so much there to appreciate that I'm glad I kept coming back.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

gellio said:


> I have struggled with Meistersinger far more that any other Wagner opera. To me it is just too long, slow and dull. Hopefully, someday I will come to appreciate it, but The Ring to me is his best work, followed by Parsifal and Tristan.


Try watching the DVD of Die Meistersinger from the Glyndebourne opera festival. The acting, especially by David, is very good and makes some of the scenes that might otherwise appear dull (like David's listing of the "tones") quite funny.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Try watching the DVD of Die Meistersinger from the Glyndebourne opera festival. The acting, especially by David, is very good and makes some of the scenes that might otherwise appear dull (like David's listing of the "tones") quite funny.


Who conducted this one? Amazon does not cleanly produce a Glyndebourne production on this opera on a search (for me anyway).


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Florestan said:


> Who conducted this one? Amazon does not cleanly produce a Glyndebourne production on this opera on a search (for me anyway).


Vladimir Jurowsky did. Here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/Die-Meistersinger-Nurnberg-Gerald-Finley/dp/B008REG87A

I find it most all-around perfect. The costumes are updated, but only to the 19th century. The singing is very good, and even the diction of the non-German singers is almost accent-free. And the acting with all the little details makes it really the comedy that Wagner intended it to be. I watched it last night, and now I want more!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Hands down -- Parsifal!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Despite his disdain for some of the sillier aspects of grand opera, H.L. Mencken once said that Die Meistersinger was the greatest single work of art in Western civilization


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Despite his disdain for some of the sillier aspects of grand opera, H.L. Mencken once said that Die Meistersinger was the greatest single work of art in Western civilization


Please note that 'As an admirer of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, [Mencken] was a detractor of religion, populism and representative democracy, which he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors.......... His diary indicates that he harbored strong racist and anti-semitic attitudes, and was sympathetic to the Social Darwinism practiced by the Nazis.'

i'm not sure what Mencken's ideal of Western civilisation might be. He was a man of great contradictions!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Yawn... now, where did I put meine jackboots?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

In the 20th century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> In the 20th century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived


OK but others have called Wagner very different things. I'm not an admirer of Auden so his opinion doesn't count for me. Wagner was a genius of course, but was he a greater genius than Leonardo? Or Einstein? Or Brunel? Or Shakespeare? Or Beethoven? Auden's statement when analysed logically is meaningless as genius can take many forms. Even among musicians you won't find agreement that Wagner is the greatest musical genius though even his detractors would have to admit he was a genius. 
Now to say he was a genius who is your favourite composer - no problem!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I watched Acts I and II of the Glyndebourne Meistersinger all over again tonight. Wonderful, simply wonderful!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Please note that 'As an admirer of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, [Mencken] was a detractor of religion, populism and representative democracy, which he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors.......... His diary indicates that he harbored strong racist and anti-semitic attitudes, and was sympathetic to the Social Darwinism practiced by the Nazis.'
> 
> i'm not sure what Mencken's ideal of Western civilisation might be. He was a man of great contradictions!


Might not Mr. Mencken be allowed to express his high opinion of _Meistersinger_ without having you raid his closet for skeletons?

If I started quoting famous people's opinions of _Tristan_ or _Parsifal_ or the _Ring,_ would you also have to tell us what was wrong with _those_ people? Do you think, perhaps, that by digging up dirt and discrediting them, you're thereby discrediting Wagner indirectly? Well, good luck with that!

There's only one person whom such tabloid tactics discredit.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Please note that 'As an admirer of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, [Mencken] was* a detractor of religion*, populism and representative democracy, which he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors.......... His diary indicates that he harbored strong racist and anti-semitic attitudes, and was sympathetic to the Social Darwinism practiced by the Nazis.'
> 
> i'm not sure what Mencken's ideal of Western civilisation might be. He was a man of great contradictions!


Meister starts in a church. I think that adds to his credibility then.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Itullian said:


> Meister starts in a church. I think that adds to his credibility then.


Good one, paesan. :lol:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DoReFaMi said:


> The Ring is quite an accomplishment but there are a few low points. The leitmotivs are used in a very obvious way and ad nauseam.


I like that the leitmotives are used in an obvious way Ad nauseam.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

_Quote Originally Posted by DoReFaMi:

The Ring is quite an accomplishment but there are a few low points. The leitmotivs are used in a very obvious way and ad nauseam._


Sloe said:


> I like that the leitmotives are used in an obvious way Ad nauseam.


They are also used in many a non-obvious way. And Wagner's ability to extend, transform and combine his themes in ever-fresh and fascinating ways is both a technical and a dramatic feat which no one has ever equaled. Debussy's famous quip about the characters of the _Ring_ presenting their calling cards only shows how little he had studied the work - or how much he felt the need to diss Wagner for fear of being too influenced by him.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I'm a Wagner devotee and I agree with the OP - Meistersinger has nothing that leaves me thinking "Hmm, that seems like it could have been done differently." Additionally, IMO the mood and atmosphere that it captures is infectious beyond any of his other operas. I think Tristan is touted by music historians and musicologists as being Wagner's greatest because of it somehow comes across as more abstract than Meistersinger or Ring, more like 'absolute' music that is given a huge priority in the WCM world - all of Wagner's mature operas do things harmonically that the others would not, so I would actually reject the notion that Tristan is more sophisticated than the others. Even though it's more chromatic than Meistersinger, that statement should not read 'more advanced' but to many people it does.

Wagner said that he "hasn't had any new ideas since Tristan und Isolde" after a certain point, but he also said that Die Walkure was the work in which he had taken all of human suffering that his consciousness could account for. It's interesting because if there's any Wagner work that people generally think of as being special, it would be Die Walkure. And I agree with them largely....it has a desperate passion that penetrates to the extent that it's almost disturbing. 

One thing that stands out about Wagner's music and his most compelling characters is that they express something that is profoundly at odds with the status quo, the fullness of their personality is not permitted an existence by the powers that be. That can be said of Tristan, but to a much greater extent of Wotan and Hans Sachs....their personalities are too complex for the status quo. The music of Die Walkure really captures it, like something natural that's fighting simply to be itself against what is forced and contrived....the theme of resistance gives it its power, and it shows up in the construction of the harmonies. I posted the act 2 prelude not that long ago here, and if you listen to the part after the prolonged augmented triad.....it resolved to c minor, with the trumpet/ trombone playing an insistent Eb....the harmony moves to Ab major and the portion of the brass still plays Eb....It moves to a diminished 7th chord and still Eb.....finally the harmony reaches a tipping point and resolves Augmented Sixth-style to C major and the brass moves to E natural, as though it achieved some kind of liberation in the midst of its frustration.

All that's just to say that the music is special because its subject matter is so intense. But I think Meistersinger still comes on top. The problem with Die Walkure as a drama is that it needs a bigger world. You only have 6 major characters and some Valkyries who show up. Wagner created a BIG world with the Ring but it just doesn't seem that way in this opera, it is too intimate for the gigantic music. It feels like something is missing. Where is the world that oppresses the protagonists? They are represented by 2 characters (hunding and fricka) who, although their music (and voices) are imposing, aren't on stage for all that long. Where is the world in this opera?

In Meistersinger Wagner creates the big world for the drama to unfold convincingly in. The central character(s) share some of the same themes as his most irresistible characters elsewhere, being frustrated by the domination of a conventional and oppressive force, although it is not to the same extent as Wotan (it is after all, a comedy). Wotan's experience of shame outweighs Hans Sachs' experience of being an outcast and frustrated poet/ human, but there's enough there in the character to allow this subtle but salient Wagnerian theme to provide the inspiration for the music's beauty.

So I give it to Meistersinger. It has complexity, simplicity, beauty, passion, relevance, entertainment, is aesthetically a gem from start to finish....it's the 8th wonder of the world.

But I realize that what I really wanted to say with this post was how deeply Wagner's music speaks to the human experience of being of the 'other half', of being denied the experience or dignity of being fully a human.....paradoxically it makes you more human.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I'm a Wagner devotee and I agree with the OP - Meistersinger has nothing that leaves me thinking "Hmm, that seems like it could have been done differently." Additionally, IMO the mood and atmosphere that it captures is infectious beyond any of his other operas. I think Tristan is touted by music historians and musicologists as being Wagner's greatest because of it somehow comes across as more abstract than Meistersinger or Ring, more like 'absolute' music that is given a huge priority in the WCM world - all of Wagner's mature operas do things harmonically that the others would not, so I would actually reject the notion that Tristan is more sophisticated than the others. Even though it's more chromatic than Meistersinger, that statement should not read 'more advanced' but to many people it does.
> 
> Wagner said that he "hasn't had any new ideas since Tristan und Isolde" after a certain point, but he also said that Die Walkure was the work in which he had taken all of human suffering that his consciousness could account for. It's interesting because if there's any Wagner work that people generally think of as being special, it would be Die Walkure. And I agree with them largely....it has a desperate passion that penetrates to the extent that it's almost disturbing.
> 
> ...


Wonderful thoughts, Gaspard. Thank you.

I think you've identified an essentially Wagnerian theme here: _"One thing that stands out about Wagner's music and his most compelling characters is that they express something that is profoundly at odds with the status quo, the fullness of their personality is not permitted an existence by the powers that be. That can be said of Tristan, but to a much greater extent of Wotan and Hans Sachs....their personalities are too complex for the status quo."_ For me, this strikes very close to home, as I would guess it does for many other Wagner-lovers, and is certainly one of the things that allows us to empathize and identify with characters as diverse, and as far outside of the mundane, as the Dutchman, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Siegmund, Wotan, and Amfortas. All these characters harbor some great aspiration - often represented symbolically - but live with the consequences of having gone about realizing their destinies in the wrong way, either intrinsically wrong or wrong as defined by the world in which they find themselves. Those consequences are ultimately tragic, except in the two of Wagner's operas which end optimistically: _Die Meistersinger _and _Parsifal._

I believe I understand your reasons for finding _Meistersinger_ Wagner's most perfect work, and I agree with them in part but not entirely. _Meistersinger_ does indeed present a larger social context in which the drama of its characters can play out - but that's mainly because, unlike the other operas, it's a comedy, and in that genre, more than any other, the conflicts and misunderstandings of individuals are shown to have a social source and, in the end, a social resolution. Although the characters in _Meistersinger_ have distinct personal traits which contribute to their conflicts, those conflicts are finally resolved not through individual psychic or spiritual evolution or conversion but through an understanding of what makes life in society possible, and indeed through a reigning in or a discipline of urges which tend to push society toward conflict and chaos. Sachs's understanding and pacification of the world's _"Wahn"_ is quite a different objective and outcome than those Wagner pursues in his earlier works, which focus on the tragedy of the individual for whom living by the world's rules and customs is impossible. If the world is underrepresented for you in _Die Walkure_, then it must surely be to an even greater degree in _Tristan_, where even when other characters are present, and filled with compassion or fear or anger, they hardly matter; they all represent the Day, from which Tristan and Isolde seek deliverance, finally reaching "das Wunderreich der Nacht" in the only way it can be reached.

It appears to me that your nomination of _Meistersinger_ as Wagner's greatest achievement implies a preference for comedy over the peculiar genre which he creates in his other works, which I would characterize as a kind of psycho-religious drama focused intensely on the inner lives of his protagonists - focused on, to put it in religious terms, the struggle of the soul to find salvation, and the tragedy of the attempt to find it in ways that prove to be illusions: _Wahn._ _Tristan_ is the most intense expression of this essentially Wagnerian theme, the theme of man's unquenchable longing to transcend the essentially impossible conditions of life in the world and simultaneously the limits of the self. And could any theme be more profoundly human? When people say they cannot identify with Wagner's characters and cite _Meistersinger_ as the exception because the its characters are more "human," I have to say I find the implied conception of what is human a limited one. But fortunately _Tristan_ was not Wagner's last word on human aspiration, or he would have had to commit suicide after writing it! For me the fascinating thing about _Meistersinger_ following so soon after _Tristan_ is not that he was able to turn so quickly to the composition of such a radically different work, but that he knew he needed to do so: he saw that the crisis of spirit posed in _Tristan_ needed an answer, an answer which would show that the passions of the heart, of the loins, and of the imagination - his, Wagner's, own passions - could in some way be reconciled with living in the world. That he knew this was his project is proved in _Meistersinger _when he, in the orchestra, and Sachs, in the libretto, speak of Tristan and Isolde and then resolutely leave the tragic lovers behind.

Whether or not Wagner himself ever reached the serene reconciliation with life that he sought to embody in Sachs and to teach Wotan through tragedy and Walther through comedy, he was somehow ready at the end to create a hero who, though tempted by passion and illusion, was able to find in himself the key to his own salvation - the Buddha's key: empathy with the pain of all that lives and breathes, and acceptance of his role in bringing love and healing to a world lost in _Wahn_. _Parsifal_ was, in fact, the opera that followed _Meistersinger_ (_Gotterdammerung_ being the completion of a work conceived much earlier), and it takes up and amalgamates all the basic themes of his life's work and, by an alchemy only an old master could command, concentrates and transmutes them into something incomparably subtle, deep, rich, and strange. Much as I love the shattering passion of _Tristan_, the gentle wisdom of _Meistersinger,_ and the heroic scope of the _Ring_, _Parsifal_ is the work of Wagner's which for me plumbs the darkest depths and soars to the greatest heights of human spiritual experience, and does so in a form so exquisitely wrought that the slightest alteration in it would be a loss. I guess that's a good enough definition of perfection for me.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

*Let's Talk Die Meistersinger*

Instead of creating a new thread, I thought we could use this one. I'm really on the fence about this opera in the Wagner repertoire. I'm currently doing the challenge of mono recordings for this opera (like 16 recordings) and I do not feel any pleasure for the music. It's completely different to the rest of the Bayreuth Canon and just after watching a long time ago the Morris Levine DVD for DG, this just became one of those stories I really dislike, especially Act III.

The libretto, although funny in German, has some story spins I do not end up liking, like it reminds me of a kids TV show with a one-sided charachter being defeated by the good ones, embarrased in front of the "people". My life experience has unfortunately made me side with Beckmesser when it comes to being the one moked by the cool guy, Hans Sachs, and eventually the rest of the kids in the playground: Nürnberg.

Also, this:



Granate said:


> I don't think it's innacurate for a Traditional performance of Meistersinger, unless several users with more knowledge about German History can prove me wrong about the average weight of noblemen who come to Nürnberg, fall in love with a maid who surprisingly loves them back, and between them and supreme troll Hans Sachs can overcome the desperate plans of Sixtus Beckmesser to finally get married.
> 
> Poor Beckmesser. You'll always have my shoulder! :kiss:


Both _Meistersinger_ and _The Lion King_ are two stories I don't find myself comfortable with.

I'd love you talked to me about the charachters of Pogner, Sachs and Beckmesser.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

To help out, Barbebleu posted very interesting remarks about Veigt Pogner I was not aware about.



Barbebleu said:


> I think that a lot of us Wagner fans do care "how Wagner composed it". I would need to be highly egotistical to think that the composer didn't know best what he wanted to convey in his composition. When I have a minute I'll have a look at the score and see what Wagner actually wrote for Sachs in the "Wahn" monologue.
> 
> I'm definitely not sure that even in the time that Meistersinger is set the relationship between a man and his friend's daughter would have been considered entirely appropriate! I know the past is a different place and that they do things differently there, but still.





Barbebleu said:


> With regard to Sachs' intentions towards Eva we should bear in mind the character and morals of the composer. Not exactly a shining beacon of moral superiority, particularly when it came to other men's wives! This of course has no bearing at all on the excellence of his music making but always worth remembering. Everything you need to know about Sachs is contained both in the score and in the libretto. If one chooses to see his interest in a younger woman as purely chaste, good and well. If you choose, as I think I probably do, to see it as something altogether more than that, then one can imagine more clearly his jealousy at being ousted by Walther, the much younger, and interestingly modern, man!





Barbebleu said:


> With regard to my post #237 'Wahn, Wahn' is written in bar 305 as 'rest, crotchet, rest, crotchet' i.e. rest, wahn, rest, wahn and then a crotchet rest in bar 306 before singing 'uberall wahn'. The two Wahns do not run into each other as one continuous note. Any singer not doing that is not singing what Wagner wrote.
> 
> Meistersinger has always troubled me with regard to Pogner's intentions for his daughter. This is a man, a wealthy man, who in a moment of hubris puts his daughter up as first prize in a singing competition. On the face of it not a very loving thing to do. Unless of course he has a backup plan in mind.
> 
> ...


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

I love your take on Sachs as the cool guy & supreme troll! My view of the character is now forever altered


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Granate said:


> Instead of creating a new thread, I thought we could use this one. I'm really on the fence about this opera in the Wagner repertoire. I'm currently doing the challenge of mono recordings for this opera (like 16 recordings) and I do not feel any pleasure for the music. It's completely different to the rest of the Bayreuth Canon and just after watching a long time ago the Morris Levine DVD for DG, this just became one of those stories I really dislike, especially Act III.
> 
> The libretto, although funny in German, has some story spins I do not end up liking, like it reminds me of a kids TV show with a one-sided charachter being defeated by the good ones, embarrased in front of the "people". My life experience has unfortunately made me side with Beckmesser when it comes to being the one moked by the cool guy, Hans Sachs, and eventually the rest of the kids in the playground: Nürnberg.
> 
> ...


Beckmesser I feel is particularly ill-treated. He is the town-clerk, a position of some authority in a sixteenth century German town, albeit a somewhat idealised one as imagined by Wagner. He is a valued and experienced member of the Singer's Guild and given Sach's treatment of him must have been a genuine threat in the competition for Eva's hand.

Even Pogner recognises this when he says to Beckmesser at the start of Act 1, Sc. 3 - "Im Wettgesang müsst ihr bestehen; wer böte euch als Meistersinger Trutz?" Roughly translated as "Success will go with your endeavour; Who wields like you the Master's spell?

He is certainly old-fashioned and set in the traditional ways of the Guild but that's not reason enough to humiliate him in front of the whole town thereby losing a huge amount of face. His jealousy of Walther is quite understandable and his treatment of Walther in the song trial is entirely in keeping with the rules as they presently exist. His own song, while constructed under the old rules, is not a bad song until he falls foul of Sachs and is duped into taking lyrics he is entirely unfamiliar with and has to "cobble" them together with his own tune in short order in time to sing it in front of everyone later that day! No wonder he makes a hash of it!

The productions that have some sort of nonsensical reconciliation between Sachs and Beckmesser aren't paying attention to Wagner's stage directions which clearly state - He rushes away in fury and is lost in the crowd.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Barbebleu said:


> He is certainly old-fashioned and set in the traditional ways of the Guild but that's not reason enough to humiliate him in front of the whole town thereby losing a huge amount of face. His jealousy of Walther is quite understandable and his treatment of Walther in the song trial is entirely in keeping with the rules as they presently exist. His own song, while constructed under the old rules, is not a bad song until he falls foul of Sachs and is duped into taking lyrics he is entirely unfamiliar with and has to "cobble" them together with his own tune in short order in time to sing it in front of everyone later that day! No wonder he makes a hash of it!


_*Warning, this will be a pretty ignorant post about the work.* There should be many inaccuracies in my telling of the story. I want to clear my doubts about it, to comprehend it. But I don't think it will make me love this opera the tiniest bit._

Reading all these descriptions, it seems to me that only Pogner and Sachs were aware of Beckmesser's intentions to wow Eva. In my mind, I still struggle to fit the pieces to why did the rest of the Mastersingers let the clerk put a mark to the newcomer when inside their heads they have the same goal (sorry, I studied script-writing): a woman's hand. Beckmesser and Walther have obstacles. For Beckmesser, Walther and Pogner's sympathy, and then Sachs. For Walther, the Meistersinger's rules that he is not used to when it comes to composing a song.

Beckmesser needs to compose a song to wow Eva, in the old Meistersinger tradition, but against her will and to be fooled by Magdalene and Hans. Walther, has two choices counting with Eva, once he is rejected at first by the Mastersingers: learn the rules in one night before St. John's Day (the elder Wagner accepting the odds of life and taking up the challenge) or running away with Eva from Nürnberg (the younger Wagner fleeing from the German territories several times).

Hans Sachs and Beckmesser set up the conflict as the young couple hides under the bushes and Magdalene disguises as Eva to fool an imprudent Beckmesser, whose action of revealing and "burning" his confident song turns against him. This is where the two concepts, comedy and criticism, are revealed. "Supreme troll" Hans Sachs understands what is happening around him after speaking with Eva and proceeds to sabotage Beckmesser's song with his cobbler hammer. This compares to the chalk scene in Act I, and then my doubts arrive:

*Was Sixtus Beckmesser following the rules of the Mastersingers in his wow to Eva in Act II?* I don't know. If he didn't, it would make sense as "karma" to those music critics that cannot apply their intelectual theories to practice. Hans acts like "if you bash Walther for not following the marks, why shouldn't you suffer the same?" Then comes sit-com and the night quarrell with David and lots of laughs.

I'm quite lost in the first half of Act III, to the point I don't remember anything of the Wahn Wahn monologue. Maybe because of this I can only see the romantic comedy side of this Act, crowd cruelty apart. Beckmesser is portrayed as an opportunist who would steal someone else's poem (it could mean a lot. Piracy is punished with prison in Germany and ministers have resigned for plagiarism), gets caught, and again, trolled by Hans Sachs, accepts a poem without music (did the words made sense in this version or it was Beck's work to distort it to the humilliantion scene?).

That's like the only thing I can catch from that scene, with no idea of what the quintet could mean to the plot apart from a joyful song uniting the two young couples, in ideal love.

St. John's Day begins and so does the creepiest part of the opera for me. The people have great respect for the Mastersingers, which are a sort of heroes with liberal or modest occupations, being the cobbler the most loved (following the legend), and being the antithesis of monarchies or Gods, close to the people. The contestants of that day wow for Veigt Pogner's daughter hand. Only one of them wow (that was my main disappointment), Beckmesser, with a song without confidence and unknown to him that prompts laughter in the peasants. Then comes from nowhere Walther von Stolzing with a prize song that "sounds so new yet so familiar" according to the people (that's Nils Frahm's slogan too). Even if they are quite alike musically, the people humilliate the clerk, who disappears, and applaud the nobleman. He has won the hand of Eva following the rules and not fleeing away like Wagner had done several times.

Then comes a part I don't understand a lot either, which is the rejection of the Meistersinger title (out of the blue?) by Walther. That forces the last monologue from the beloved Hans Sachs about the importance of the German art, the need for the new blood to settle itself within the tradition but with evolution, and the foreign threats that endanger the nature of the German culture. I was getting such III Reich vibes I couldn't handle it.

I'm sorry for this terrible explanation of how I see the story of the opera now. I just cannot tell apart the sociological depth of the plot and the romantic-comedy structure. I end up focusing on the latter because of the music, the leitmotifs and the way of singing by many on the cast. I cannot like it. It's just 4 hours of joyful tunes (never as esay as Mozart or Beethoven), lots of stops, a Magdalene line by David, the addictive Sachs leitmotif in Act II and a long quintet, plus an obedient crowd chorus.

The Nazi regime has been an unfair curse for any Wagner work. I cannot see more human, more abstract, more embracing stories in operas as with Wagner, able in my opinion to include equally singers from very different backgrounds and showcasing female roles perfectly in the 21st century. They got it all wrong. Wagner is the World, the human being and its primal feelings and goals wherever he/she comes from. Never Germany, never Aryan.

But the _Meistersingers_ is for me the exception to the rule. The most poisoned work of the Bayreuth repertoire by the rising European nationalism and anti-semitism. Beckmesser tries to be a caricature of Eduard Hanslick (which in Act II can be quite fair as he often hit on him and Anton Bruckner) but it exceeds all expectations with the actions of Beck' in Act III. I cannot see anything else than a caricature and hummiliation of a dirty jew clerk and the success of a young and hungry new bourgeoisie; which is rather cruel considering what was going to happen in the first half of the 20th century, and I'm sure neither Nietzsche or Wagner would have signed for that.

Time for you to reply with everything wrong with this post (please don't delete it mods). Currently listening to my 13th Meistersinger in mono. What a torture!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Granate said:


> _Even if they are quite alike musically, the people humiliate the clerk, who disappears, and applaud the nobleman._


_

The two songs never struck me as much alike musically (not to mention verbally)._


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

gellio said:


> I could add Cosi and Zauberflote to that, but not Falstaff, LOL. Verdi is not my cup of tea


Wow, how times change. I love Verdi and Falstaff now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

gellio said:


> Wow, how times change. I love Verdi and Falstaff now.


Congratulations. ...........


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Barbebleu said:


> Beckmesser ... is certainly old-fashioned and set in the traditional ways of the Guild but that's not reason enough to humiliate him in front of the whole town thereby losing a huge amount of face. His jealousy of Walther is quite understandable and his treatment of Walther in the song trial is entirely in keeping with the rules as they presently exist. His own song, while constructed under the old rules, is not a bad song until he falls foul of Sachs and is duped into taking lyrics he is entirely unfamiliar with and has to "cobble" them together with his own tune in short order in time to sing it in front of everyone later that day! No wonder he makes a hash of it!


I think that Beckmesser was not so much duped as he just got rattled and blew it in the contest, revealing is inner fears rather than singing the song. True Sachs made a lot of trouble for him the evening before when he tried to woo Eva, but realistically, it would have been a horrible result for Eva had Beckmesser won the contest. She would have had to reject him but could marry nobody else. I think that means she remains unmarried for life? At any rate, Sachs has a great fatherly affection for Eva and apparently is just trying to save her from a miserable life. Remember Sachs was willing to let the Eva elope but for he felt he could make it work out in the singing contest.

The only thing missing is for Beckmesser to have a Don Pasquale moment in the end and celebrate the uniting of Eva and Stolzing, after realizing that he is indeed too old for her.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

gellio said:


> I have struggled with Meistersinger far more that any other Wagner opera. To me it is just too long, slow and dull. Hopefully, someday I will come to appreciate it, but The Ring to me is his best work, followed by Parsifal and Tristan.


I first watched Meistersinger on DVD in 2015, then spun a few disks but really never latched onto it until just recently. Now I love it. Since it took me 5 years, maybe your time has come.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

the point of _Der Meistersinger_ is the Renaissance comes victorious over the Middle Ages.

it is in the song of Walther von Stolzing he performed at the 'master song' contest,

even though Stolzing had been tutored by a meistersinger as song producer:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Zhdanov said:


> the point of _Der Meistersinger_ is the Renaissance comes victorious over the Middle Ages.
> 
> it is in the song of Walther von Stolzing he performed at the 'master song' contest,
> 
> even though Stolzing had been tutored by a meistersinger as song producer:


I was thinking a similar thought, that Meistersinger is about Wagner pushing a new type of music in opera, musical drama, past the present state of opera, and that Stolzing's performance was analogous to Wagner. Of course I am not well read on Wagner or the times. Did Wagner meet resistance to his musical dramas that he had to push past.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The other question I have is why did Sachs not let on to Eva that he hoped to bring about a turn of events. Was it that he didn't want to give her false hopes? But still, the evening conversation they had ended on a very sour note, as if Sachs wanted to dash all her hopes. Anyone with an answer?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SixFootScowl said:


> I was thinking a similar thought, that Meistersinger is about Wagner pushing a new type of music in opera, musical drama, past the present state of opera, and that Stolzing's performance was analogous to Wagner. Of course I am not well read on Wagner or the times. Did Wagner meet resistance to his musical dramas that he had to push past.


Oh yes. Wagner of course is the hero. His ideas are progressive. Beckmesser is his reactionary critics represented by Hanslick. The noble German Art of course has Wagner as it's champion. All top thumping stuff which makes Rule Britannia look tame.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

SixFootScowl said:


> The other question I have is why did Sachs not let on to Eva that he hoped to bring about a turn of events. Was it that he didn't want to give her false hopes? But still, the evening conversation they had ended on a very sour note, as if Sachs wanted to dash all her hopes. Anyone with an answer?


I think Sachs was trying to understand Eva's feelings through provoking her. The provocation was the "sour note" but only after Sachs had heard Eva's response to his provocation did he understand and say "I thought so. Now we must find a way!" By that time Eva had already stormed away and there wasn't much to do regarding that.



DavidA said:


> The noble German Art of course has Wagner as it's champion. All top thumping stuff which makes Rule Britannia look tame.


Lol. Wagner's art certainly was progressive, revolutionary and more-or-less well-received (every famous composer has been criticised).


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

They're all perfect.:tiphat:


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

After complaining about an Internet-shortened attention span, I have nonetheless ordered the Glyndebourne Meistersinger after seeing the recommendation a couple of pages back in this thread and seeing that the Hans Sachs is sung by Gerald Finley, one of the finest singing actors in currency today. I suppose I can watch an hour a day for a couple of weeks or so ... I do very much love Meistersinger and saw it at the Met years ago, even though the Walther, Heppner, was going through a bad vocal patch and couldn't make it through the Prize Song ... which is, after all, the climax of the opera.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Barelytenor said:


> After complaining about an Internet-shortened attention span, I have nonetheless ordered the Glyndebourne Meistersinger after seeing the recommendation a couple of pages back in this thread and seeing that the Hans Sachs is sung by Gerald Finley, one of the finest singing actors in currency today. I suppose I can watch an hour a day for a couple of weeks or so ... I do very much love Meistersinger and saw it at the Met years ago, even though the Walther, Heppner, was going through a bad vocal patch and couldn't make it through the Prize Song ... which is, after all, the climax of the opera.
> 
> Kind regards, :tiphat:
> 
> George


The problem is with the opera that it couldlose a hour and still have all the drama in it. To all but the most devoted Wagnerians it is too long. I sat through it when the Met broadcast it and although it is more conducive that some of Wagner's other operas, it does drag. Wagner seemed to be so blessed with getting every detail in that he made the thing unwieldy. I always think of my editors red pencil when I hear it!


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

DavidA said:


> I always think of my editors red pencil when I hear it!


and which of the episodes to be crossed out?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Barelytenor said:


> After complaining about an Internet-shortened attention span, I have nonetheless ordered the *Glyndebourne Meistersinger* after seeing the recommendation a couple of pages back in this thread and seeing that the Hans Sachs is sung by Gerald Finley, one of the finest singing actors in currency today. I suppose I can watch an hour a day for a couple of weeks or so ... I do very much love Meistersinger and saw it at the Met years ago, even though the Walther, Heppner, was going through a bad vocal patch and couldn't make it through the Prize Song ... which is, after all, the climax of the opera.
> 
> Kind regards, :tiphat:
> 
> George


I am watching that Meistersinger now and it is absolutely wonderful!

EDIT: Oh, and Gerald Finley has an awesome voice!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> and which of the episodes to be crossed out?


The scene where David describes the contest rules for a start. But I know some people like to have every i dotted and every t crossed.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> The scene where David describes the contest rules for a start.


I love that part.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> I love that part.


Well you are perfectly free to do so. I find it tedious.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Well you are perfectly free to do so. I find it tedious.


I can see how one might. But David's catalog is intended to be overly fastidious and pedantic, in order to provoke Walther's angry protest against what seem no more than arbitrary, suffocating rules. That conflict, after all, is at the heart of what the opera's about.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

amfortas said:


> I can see how one might. But David's catalog is intended to be overly fastidious and pedantic, in order to provoke Walther's angry protest against what seem no more than arbitrary, suffocating rules. That conflict, after all, is at the heart of what the opera's about.


But it is over-long in an over-long opera


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

DavidA said:


> The scene where David describes the contest rules for a start.


a very important scene, where a commoner lectures a nobleman, on music semantics included:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Zhdanov said:


> a very important scene, where a commoner lectures a nobleman, on music semantics included:


But as I'm not singing I can do without it! :lol:


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> But it is over-long in an over-long opera


If you think the opera is over-long, you're going to find not just that scene, but many others, over-long. Not to mention plenty in Wagner's other works. There's no question, Wagner makes demands few composers or dramatists could get away with. But for those who love his work, those demands aren't exorbitant at all.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

amfortas said:


> If you think the opera is over-long, you're going to find not just that scene, but many others, over-long. Not to mention plenty in Wagner's other works. There's no question, Wagner makes demands few composers or dramatists could get away with. But for those who love his work, those demands aren't exorbitant at all.


Well Wagner was Wagner. He made demands on everyone didn't he?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Well Wagner was Wagner. He made demands on everyone didn't he?


Thank goodness he did!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Well Wagner was Wagner. He made demands on everyone didn't he?


Fortunately I don't live during his time, I'm not one of his disciples, and I don't have a wife. So I'm pretty safe.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Itullian said:


> Thank goodness he did!


Just glad it wasn't my bank account or my wife


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